I am sitting in the common room of the Mix Hostel in Chengdu, China, home of the famous Sichuan food, Giant Panda Bears, and the world's largest statue of Chairman Mao. Behind me is a Chinese girl that works at the hostel watching a Chinese TV show at like 11, and it is making my brain want to burst. Of course the router used by this particular hostel is too weak to reach the second floor were my room is, so I have to sit here if I want to use the internets. Luke and I just got off the train about 12:00 this morning and sprinted to the hostel so we could use the bathroom. See last Sunday Luke and I both got sick at the same time. I was pretty sure it was really bad food poisoning or some other bacterial infection. So we went to hospital and got some medicine, in this case IV's and oral antibiotics. The Chinese don't believe in shots that would be over with in 5 seconds, instead they want you to take an IV bottle of medicine and sit around for 3 hours to take all of them. They also refer to these as injections, and when I tried to explain the difference between an injection and intraveinous fluids they just stared at me. Even better, I asked a few students who are actually doing they're practical studying at the hospital right now to take me to the doctor. on the way to the doctor they were quizzing me on my symptoms, and one looked at me and asked me if maybe I had drank some cold water or cold pop with dinner and that had made me sick. Let me emphasize that this was the fifth day I had been experiencing the same symptoms before I went to the hospital. So it wasn't like I had drank some cold water and ate some hot food and then they had a kungfu fight in my stomach and that is what has made me sick for 5 days straight. Don't get me wrong I like China and the people are really nice and helpful but sometimes I just wonder about them. These are the people who are going to become doctors someday, their diagnosis for abdominal pain and diarrhea is too much cold water, some where Dr. House is screaming loudly at a wall about Chinese medicine. So we got all healthy we thought and then got on a train.
At first the train ride seemed like it might be a magical journey, the likes of which China has never seen. We got two first class bunks but they were in separate compartments. However when we got on the train the beds already had people in them so they gave us a compartment all to ourselves. The first class cabins actually have doors that close and lock so we could actually enjoy our trip and not feel like we were exhibts at the zoo. So we were loving that and we thought that it would be a nice easy trip to Chengdu. However after being on the train for about 4 hours Luke started to feel sick. So he decided to try and get some sleep to see if it would make him feel better. While he was trying to sleep I discovered why our compartment was completely empty when we got on the train, our compartment was right by the bathroom. So whenever the train would stop at a station, which was quite frequent actually, our whole cabin would immediatley smell like urine so strongly that it was hard to breath. It was so bad the first time it happenend it literally woke Luke up out of a dead sleep. So as the night wore on Luke got progressively sicker, ending up with the dreaded trip into the train bathroom to make a BM. Which let me tell you the man is either the bravest man I know or was just that desparate. After that he was feeling a little better so we went back to bed. I woke up around 9 after a night of sleeping very badly, Luke woke up about 5 minutes after me and proceeded to puke into the trashcan in our compartment, AWESOME!!! So at this point Luke was full blown sick and I wasn't feeling so hot either. The main problem with all of this is we came to Chengdu for one thing, food. Yes they have some interesting sites to visit but they also have Sichuan food, consider by most Chinese people to be the best Chinese food even though it is spicy, and they also have a great selection of western style food. So here we are we took this trip to eat food and both of our digestive systems are doing flip-flops, but I guess if we drink some hot water we will be ok.
I will have a lot more about our trip coming up. I just went to one Monastery today while Luke was at the hospital getting medicine. So I posted some pictures from the monastery. I kind of felt bad about taking pictures of the Chinese people as they were praying to their big copper statues, but I took the pictures anyways because I am a bad person. Quick programing note the Hostel sound system is now playing "It's raining Men", Awesome. I have alot more pictures to come and I have also figured out how to get around the block on my video site finally so expect some videos in a few weeks. I am working on a masterpiece for mine and Luke's trip to Chengdu, I actually have it storyboarded and I have been shooting B role footage and everything. I already have a song list put together in my head, it isn't finalized yet but I think you are going to like it. So on that note I am going to sign off I need to get some sleep, I am an old man and it has been a busy day.
