Second Post - Chengdu

Monday July 28 2008
Day 2 in Chengdu was pretty good. I managed to sleep until about 1030, then read in the apartment for a while. Sam and I got some lunch, then went to the bank to change money. We then took a bus into downtown, walked around a bit, saw the huge Mao statue in the square from the bus and lots of new buildings. The cell-phone mall was a bit crazy, especially the prices the Chinese will pay for phones – a lot of really nice models are over $400. Per my instructions, Sam just asked for what their cheapest phone was, a new Nokia, pretty basic, so I got that. My Chinese number is 13666249331. Then we walked to a pet store near there and got some goldfish for the piranhas at the apartment, looked around at some really cute baby turtles, then caught a cab back to the apartment as it started to get a lot hotter (around 4 pm). We listened to some music back at the apartment and played some Wii, then Alex, another American our age, came over and we went out for Muslim food, passing the new Hooters on the way. Alex and Sam were pretty excited about that prospect, especially because the massive sign out from just says Hooters Chengdu. They said it didn't even have signs up a week ago so that is a new American business here in the city.
After the Muslim food (they used some other word for it but it's escaping me now), we went back to Alex's apartment and just chilled out, we were all pretty tired. The high humidity really takes it out of you, and the constant stimulation of being in a new culture is taxing as well. I was, however, able to walk Sam and I home from Alex's, based on landmarks and my internal compass, and got us home the most direct way, so I was pretty happy about that. Now that I've got a phone I feel a lot more comfortable just going out and exploring along with my camera – walking a city is definitely the best way to get to know it so over the next few days I think I'll try to hit some of the sites in Rough Guide by myself and see how that goes.