Saturday July 24 Nanjing to Chengdu

We pack up, eat breakfast, pile into van for trip to airport with detour of visiting jade place first. Once again, I am feeling pressured to buy things that I know little about. We have no idea of what to expect in terms of prices which is our first mistake. My second mistake is to allow these salespeople to separate Richard and me from one another. I back down from our original intent of what we were considering buying due to the steep prices. There is then some sort of a shuffle of items that Is beyond me to be able to understand and, in the melée, I miscalculate the price and pay much more than I would have liked, I discover to my dismay later. After all, I wonder if what we purchased is of any quality at all, to boot. With some amusement, I wonder if this is where the expression "to be jaded" comes from. Ugh.

To the airport we go to head for Chengdu. When we're retrieving our luggage in baggage claim, we introduce ourselves to an American Chinese family who are from Houston, just coming from Yangzhou where they were visiting their grandparents, and are now in Chengdu to participate in some sort of a writer's workshop where they will be interviewing children about their experiences in the earthquake in May of 2008. Would be nice to connect with them on two counts - Yangzhou and their project. I mentioned the work of Half the Sky Foundation to them.

We meet our guide Shelley at the airport and our bus driver drives us in a van to our hotel, the Sheraton Chengdu Lido Hotel, which certainly appears very elegant and brand new. In fact, driving into Chengdu seems like driving into a big city in the U.S. - fancy shopping districts with fancy name brand stuff. For example, Prada seems to be in at least one place everywhere. We check in and take it easy for a bit until dinnertime. Anna finally gets into one of the books that she brought with her while I catch up on my journaling and Richard is working on his family history stuff while Gail has a rest. When we head downstairs, we run into the Vertizes who have just arrived at the hotel from Becky's orphanage in Jiangxi. We all head for a Sichuan restaurant called Chen Ma Po Bean Curd Restaurant where the menu is completely in Chinese and the wait staff knows no English. One of the patrons helps us out by translating for us and for the wait staff. Hmmm... I should have brought my IPad to use the Chinese English dictionary... I think it's the best meal we've had the whole trip - crunchy, cut-up, fresh vegetables in the dishes and just the right flavoring spice-wise. We walk back to the hotel and decide to get some ice cream on the second floor. Small dishes of ice cream end up costing us more than all of dinner!