10/18 Arrived in Chengdu!

October 18th

We woke up super early today to go to the airport. Our flight to Chengdu was at 7:30 am so we headed to the airport at 4:30 am. The airline employees weren't even there to help us until 6 am!

Ruth almost left her purse at the airport but her daughter (me) realized it before we got on the plane! The flight was nice and we actually saw the sun above the clouds. It's been a few days since blue skies and sunshine.

Side note: Today, I wore sandals. Let me tell you why I now realize this is a horrible mistake and if you plan to come to China make sure to only pack closed toed shoes. It is a good time to tell you about bathrooms in China. In most homes and hotels, they have sitting toilets but everywhere else they primarily have squatting toilets. We learned very quickly to always carry some tissues as toilet paper otherwise you might come to a restroom without any. Let's just say as soon as we got to the new hotel, I put back on my closed toed shoes!!!

We landed in Chengdu and were greeted by Leon's mom's nephews and the oldest nephew's wife. They had two cars and we were able to get all our luggage in the cars. We headed to Leon's uncle's place to drop off Teresa (she is staying with the aunt and uncle). We went to the hotel to check in - it is just a few blocks from his aunt and uncle.

We then went back to the aunt and uncle's place to have lunch - wutong soup that was homemade by his aunt along with some Napa cabbage. After eating all this food, we were ready for a nap but instead we hung out around the apartment doing laundry - they have a small washing machine but no dryer so our clothes are hanging out the window drying! Leon, his cousin, and I walked back to the hotel to grab a few things.

Homemade wutong soup

Washing machine.  They don't have dryers. 

Mom pretending like she is cooking!

Some of the uncle's art work

Our clothes hanging out to dry!

His older cousin is married with a 16 year old son who attends a boarding school. He was able to come over on Saturday to join us for the day. After mom got a nap, we took a nice stroll around area. We saw swans in a little lake - some were white and some were black. 

Sugar cane sales on the street

The uncle is a famous artist and does beautiful paintings. He presented us with a book of his painting that he has done. He even signed them for us using beautiful calligraphy.

The family prepared a nice dinner for us that wasn't too spicy. We had fish, liver, pork belly, rice, tofu, carrots and chicken, daikon soup, and beef. We had some wine and they toasted our arrival. 

My parents were getting tired and his younger cousin drove them home. Leon and I hung out with everyone at the apartment. Leon got to spend some time with his second cousin who he hadn't seen since the cousin was 4 or 5 years old. They bonded over music and movies and cartoons.

Then after we already had dinner, the cousins, Leon, and I went to eat barbecue at an outside place. It was a small place that prepared food and then all the seating was outside. The food was spicy!  I am pretty sure I gulped down a bottle of water after one kebab.  To set the scene, there was a random guy singing karaoke in the middle of the restaurant. A young guy brought a traveling music setup around and people could either sing karaoke or they could pay him to sing.