Oct 18 update

I did not think I would have time to write more before the train ride but we got all our chores accomplished today and now we are just waiting to take a taxi to the train station. We are not on the fastest train as that did not have any soft sleepers left so we took the train that takes 2.5 hours longer but had the bed we wanted....what's a couple more hours between friends. I can beat Tom and some more hands of Gin Rummy along the way.

We did some organization this morning - decided to buy some air tickets from Wuhan to Shenzhen which is near Hong Kong for next Saturday. They were about $100 each which wasn't too bad so we are all set to get out of Mainland China as needed as our first visa runs out on Sunday. After organizing that we headed out to the bank and the store. First at the bank the ATM told us that we could only take out RMB2500 and we wanted RMB4000....so we took the 2500 out and then tried the same machine with the same card for another 1500 - what do you know it gave us the money! I'll try anything once and it worked. We were psyched.

We head across the street to the department store....first we need to buy some supplies.....razors, soap, q-tips, men's deodorant, pens. We find everything but the deodorant and a girl comes over to try to help us. She asks us (I think) what we are looking for....I put my arm up motion putting on deodorant by rolling or spraying and then holding my nose....Tom being the more scientific one looks the word up in the phrase book and we all agree on what we are looking for. As it turns out this is not a popular product in China as there are three or four small bottles of something very low down on one of the shelves and we decide on a silver tube that has the word deodorant on it so that is a plus....it is a liquid and Tom tried it out later so we'll see if it works. I think the Chinese have been learning too much from the French!

We don't find q-tips either but I can't think of a way to ask for those and we proceed up a moving ramp to the grocery section. This is the second big supermarket that we have been to in the neighborhood of Sims Guesthouse. It is hard to believe that the area can support two of them. This one is huge too and we take way too long going up and down the aisles trying to decide what to get. We are getting used to knowing what we can buy but the trick is finding it in the store. This store is spread out pretty well and has tons of fresh food and prepared food to look at and wonder what it is - lost of bird parts on offer. Some live fish and lots of dried fishy smelling stuff - stay away from that. We make our way around and fill up our basket for our trip to the mountains. We find this an easy way to supply ourselves for lunch and sometimes breakfast and we hope we can buy some simple food for dinner at the place we are staying at.

When we get back to the guesthouse we have some lunch - dumplings that we bought at the store. Our air tickets have arrived and they look good so that is a plus. We also have the times for the trains to get to Wuhan when we want to leave the mountain so for the next week it looks like we are all set and have a plan.

We will probably not be able to write until next week so stay well and take care - Cheers from Chengdu!

Pam