dajia hao

hooray! i got a train ticket and didn't have to walk to chengdu! i was in a closed cabin with three chinese men. one who would sing and whistle along with the extremely loud chinese techno music that played, basically, for the whole 24 hour journey. ouch! he and his friend offered me a portion of whatever they were eating, and "wo chi su" (i'm vegetarian) only got me out of so much, like the vaccuum sealed chicken legs. i did help myself to a few spoonfuls of canned chinese congee, which as far as i can tell is puffed wheat, rice, beans, peanuts, and something the can said was "Job's tears" mixed together in a semi-thick sugary sticky white sauce. i just couldn't eat the whole can, or drink warm carton of grape-milk. maybe it had to do with the constant loogie-hawking into the trash can right under my seat. i have to get used to all this spitting again! i think they felt badly for me since all i had was dried fruits and nuts, but that's all i wanted, i swear! and my bag of goodies was very tasty. really though, i think it is just chinese custom to share train food. it's been my experience in the past. they bought me bananas and some kind of candy, too, along the way, and i shard my chinese fruit roll-ups with them. the chinese invented fruit roll-ups, did you know? it's true. my two travel companions were memorable characters, very nice, and helped me fight the hustle and bustle out of the train station. the third guy just slept the whole time and smiled on his way out the train.

i sped right out of chengdu into leshan via bus to see what have proven to be some awesome sights.

now, let me just say, it makes me so sad to write in my blog and not have any pictures to share. :( sniffle.

but imagine, if you will, the world's largest carved buddha. carved from rock over a period of 97 years in the cliffs overlooking the perilous junction of three roaring rivers. the monk who started building it ran out of money halfway through, so he blinded himself to convince the government to give him more money to complete his project. i don't know if it was like "i'm blind, now you have to give me more money to survive and i'll just spend it on the statue" or if it was kind of a threatening effect like, "look how crazy i am! give me money now!". it was most likely a sign of his devotion to the giant buddha. it was meant to protect those who traveled past, yet i think it would have distracted me something fierce and i probably would have lost control of my ship drowned in any case. but it was a nice gesture and it's cool to visit now, 1300 years after the fact. some day i will post pictures, i swear.

while touring the giant buddha, i met a study abroad group from u georgia, who were all text messaging photos of the buddha back home. wow. times are a-changin'. also, i met a very nice and "hen shuai" fella from france who just got done doing study abroad in hong kong and will travel for a while before he goes home, and a group of chinese freshman university students who toured around with me for the rest of the afternoon. they invited me to their english corner, though i can't go because it's on thursday and i'll be back in chengdu by then. however. hmm. this english corner thing seems quite common. i think i will drop in on universities i pass by during this trip and see if i can land myself at a few more english corners before i go home. they are pretty fun.

i'm off to chengdu tomorrow to meet up with two friends of some friends. i'll spend the week there, where i plan to pass the mornings at teahouses, eat very spicy tofu dishes, see a chinese opera, and then leave on monday for the farm.