ching chong Chengdu.

last day in chengdu man how time flies. fair enough we were in yunnan for abot 8 days amd we're only here for three nights because we only got 2 weeks left in china :( but yeh mad place (both china and chengdu) we got here after the overnight from kunming toi find more heat, again quashing the fears that it is infact winter/early spring in china, we have yet to have a day under 20 degrees. got to our hostel, cab fare payed (cash back!) and settle into our usual routine of beer and pool. we have tended to find our days spent flirting with the chinese female staff at the hostels, eating scrambled eggs for breakfast, going on the computer, playing pool, drinking beer, having some noodles for dinner then either going a chinese club or go to watch some premier league football which on the first and second nights is exactly what we did. we caught the spurs game at the 'local' irish pub, about 3km away (chegdu is a massive city btw) brilliant performance by darren bent i must add then bumped into some guys from our hostel (seamus and fiona, who seem to be doing our journey but in the oposite direction) and had some beer and played pool. earlier on in the night we were searching for a vegetarian restaurant in the main temple but to go out on the town where u just arrived without a map especially when you dont know how big it is, is a bad idea - walked aimlessly for an hour then got a taxi back to the hostel then went and got some spicy noodles pretty much next door.

we ended up going to the wenshu temple the next day which like most of the temples weve been to is just a nice little peaceful sactuary in the middle of a busy city. this one was particularly leafy which was really nice. we went to the restaurant in the temple passing through the tea room, which was mental, loads of people drinking tea, playing cards, getting their earwax removed (yes, really). the meal was massive and cheap 6 dishes, a bucket of rice and a 2 litre bottle of coke for 3 quid. then we just went around messing about with the buddhist stuff disrespecting the locals, brits abroad and all that. when we were leaving we realised that the temple closes at 5.30 so even if we did find it the night before it would have been closed anyway. that night we went back to the irish pub to wacth super sunday which was interesting to say the least, javier mascherano, what a dickhead. spent the night with some irish guys, man u and spurs fans, non stop jokes throughout the chelsea arsenal game chants like 'why cant we be friends, why cant we be friends...' wicked. arsenal basically out of the title race now, pierre and some racist, homophobic arsenal fan cunt were in dispair come the final whistle 'matt do u wanna kick' - ok.

5 hours sleep later we went to see the pandas, who are basically the jokesest animals in the world they are just so clumsy and lazy but and they love bamboo, ive a got a pic of this one just reclined busting joke munching on some massive bamboo cane looking directly into the camera. the red pandas are not as jokes. theyre just like big red racoons, but the red of their coats is beautiful. its a shame that there is only like 1000 left but then again eat some fruit or eggs or something get some energy in ur diet u dumbarse animals.

we went back to the hostel and i had a sleep for an hour or 3, pierre decided to 'power through' after an afternoon of doing what we do best - u guessed it, drinking beer and playing pool - we went for dinner, pierre wanted to try the local speciality of hotpot, but i was a bit sketchy over the vegetarianism of it all. anyway we ask in our best manderin for a vegetarian hot pot which is basically a big pot of chili, and just point at random things on the menu that we wanted to put in, then the waitress braught us our hotpot and to plates of raw fish and just puts them right in! i sat there for a second and said i cant eat this and got some jidan suchai chow mein (egg veg fried noodles) somewhere else. pierre soldiered through and managed to eat about one and half a fish. I decided i wanted to go clubbing that night so we went back to the hostel to get tanked, i tried out the old baiju again but i just couldnt stomach it. beer would suffice. on the chinese girls in the hostels recommendation we got a cab to the student district, best place for clubbing on a monday night, and went to teh first club we saw that had loads of people out side and... loads of people of people inside! yay! bit of a sausage fest to be honest. as always i was agiant on the dancefloor, in both size and dance moves, there a few mental girls, one who was dancing like she thought she was in a music video and another who was dancing by herself in a mirror away from the dancefloor, she got a bit annoyed when i started doing the same thing, in the same mirror, in front of her. its weird how clubs work in china. in the big clubs teh people stay on their tables and pour u drinks after calling u over, in the student clubs all the tables are empty full of closed beers that the people have just left on the tabel why they go and dance. obviously they take the westerners back to their table and give u a beer and a cigarette. the second of the two tables was the funniest, they forced me into giving them my chinese AND english number i gave teh wrong english one but they called me later at 4.30 when i was trying to get to sleep phones been off since. they also said to me one of funniest things ive heard since ive been in china and i dont know quite how to take it it went something like this 'you rook rike Wayne Looney...'

see you in Xi'an. x