We arrived in Chengdu at 7pm, so had enough time for a bite to eat. We booked to stay another 2 nights in Chengdu after returning from Jiuzhaigou as we knew we'd need a rest after all that hiking. The second reason being that the England game is on at stupid o'clock. We went to our room to sort our stuff out and said we'd meet Dave and Claire afterwards. They suggested we should go out for a hotpot dinner. Jimmy from the hostel had already shown them where to get one, so we agreed that's what we needed after our time in the national park.

Hotpot sichzwan style

After we got ready, we met Claire Dave in the lobby and headed around the corner for some hotpot. They do spicy ones, but for me, I wouldn't be able to handle it, but they do non spicy ones too. So when we got there, we ordered a big pot of bud bubbling got oil, one half containing the spicy stuff, and the non spicy for me and anyone who wanted a break from the spiciness! It was just a little backstreet restaurant that was recommended by our hostel, but we'd all been wanting to try it. Dave and Claire had one already, so they have the experience of knowing how to order and cook them.

Both couples had our own tray of food that we just piled on what ever we wanted. There were loads of meats to choose from, seafood, vegetables and salad items, so we gathered loads of bits and started to put them all in the oil to cook. At least Dave and Claire knew how to do it, we wouldn't have had a clue! My favourites were the sweet potato on sticks. Although they took ages to cook, it was worth it watching it all bubbling away. John loved octopus and all the meats. We saw a couple of men come in after us and they bought loads of stuff and put it all in the pot at once! Perhaps we'd been scrimping, but we didn't really know what was the right amount to order! It was enough to fill us up for the night, so after the food, we left to go back to the hostel.

England out?

The England versus Uruguay match is on at 3am. I wasn't sure if I could manage to stay up to watch it, but I'll try my best to stay awake. We have 3 hours to kill in the meantime, so I actually had a beer with the others to keep myself awake. I surfed the net otherwise I would have fallen asleep. So when the match came on, we were surrounded by the local Chinese at the hostel, they were up for watching the game. It would make a better atmosphere if there are more of us. The match kicked off and we set out with high hopes after our recent defeat against Italy. Uruguay scored first, then we equalised, so off go a good start. However things turned sour after half time, Suarez scored putting them 2-1. It wasn't enough for us and we ended up getting defeated. It means that it's likely we're out of the World Cup now. We all went to bed a little disappointed with ourselves.

Booking our trains

The next day, we slept for most of the day catching up on sleep, eventually getting up around 12pm. We went out to get some stuff for lunch, then came back to start booking our train tickets. We'd noticed the one we wanted to Zhangjiajie had sold out for the next day, we tried other stations but all fully booked. There was space for the day after tomorrow, so we started to look at the rest of the trains we needed to book and they were all selling out fast, even for 2 weeks time. So we decided we'd write down all the trains we wanted to book and ask the hostel to translate it into Chinese so we could go and book them at the station.

We went to the station to book the one for Zhangjiajie to at least get that one sorted, then we'll go there to book the rest tomorrow. Once that was booked, we could at least relax a little. For the rest of the afternoon, we planned what trains we wanted to book for the rest of our time in China and wrote down everything we needed. Later we met up with Claire and Dave, and we went out for some noodles together. Jimmy had shown them the place, and they said they weren't spicy, so were perfect for me. They were the most delicious noodles i've had in China. Not bad for around 70 pence. I also tried dumplings and really liked them too. When we returned, we just sat in the bar with Claire and Dave and met another English couple who'd just arrived. Jimmy plonked them on our table to introduce us! We all chatted for a few hours and as we were still knackered, went to bed after John watched another football game.

The next day Dave and Claire left, so we got up, said goodbye to them and wished them well on their trip. They just got married and are taking a year away as their honeymoon, pretty cool if you ask me. After they left, we had more train planning to do, and we didn't want the tickets to sell out, so we got Frank the guy at the hostel to translate for us. We've never had to do so much onward planning for transport as we have done in China, but if you don't do it, tickets sell out.

John went down to the station to book the rest of our tickets, while I booked the next few hostel places. When he retuned, he said that the guy at the station booked one of the trains wrong. We wanted a hard sleeper for an overnight train to Guangzo as it's 11 hours. When we checked online, there were still sleeper trains available. When we checked again, there were still sleeper trains there. So we don't know why he booked us hard seat trains for an overnight journey. That's going to be an annoying one, but it's nearly the last one in China, so we'll not worry about that one until it happens. We did manage to book the rest of our trains until we reach Hong Kong, so at least we don't have to worry about them now.

Pandas again

I really enjoyed visiting the pandas, so much so, that we decided to come back and see them again this morning. It will be our last chance to see pandas for a long time, so we just had to return. We got here even earlier today, luckily it was before most of the crowds arrived, so we got much better pictures of the pandas. We saw a group of around 7 young pandas all playing together, so that was cute watching them eating and playing together. At around 9.30-10 am the centre starts to fill up with all the tour groups, so it was definitely worth getting here for around 8am. We stayed until around 10am just visiting all the different panda enclosures. I could have watched them for hours, but we had to leave to check out of our room. We had a few hours to kill, so just waited at the hostel until our train was due. John played pool and I caught up on the blog.