July 29th, 2018
Following the Leshan Da Fo Trip our plan was to ride into downtown Chengdu this morning. Meredith’s parents had organized a group and we were supposed to meet them at the gate in front of the school no later than 10:00. We woke up on time this morning and overall did a pretty good job of getting out of the house. We hopped into the car, presumably to get dropped at school right? Wrong. Ba Ba was driving us to the first house to get breakfast but it was already 9:45. There was absolutely no way that Po-po could make breakfast, we eat it, and then drive to school and still somehow manage to get there on time. I had to be the bearer of bad news by telling them we really needed to go to school because we couldn’t make everyone wait for us. Ba Ba agreed and drove Mei Mei and I to the gate after first dropping off Ma Ma. We made it to school with ten minutes to spare and so Ba Ba sat down to have noodles at the noodle shop while Mei Mei and I picked up a bao zi. I really didn’t want to eat anything this morning but I figured it’s better to just take one and go rather than try to explain why I didn’t want to eat.
I walked towards the bus stop where Shawn, Annette, Daniel, and Mason were waiting for the rest of the group going with us to show up. Once Sarah, Meredith, and Meredith’s sister arrived we piled into three taxis and headed towards the airport. I tried to capture some of our taxi ride for the vlog, but when I tried to capture the other taxis I couldn’t get anyone’s attention, except for Daniel who waved his hand out the window. I guess it didn’t help that Sarah was on a two way call with both her bank manager and dad so she had to say goodbye and I love you to both men which was awkward and super funny so my camera movements are pretty shaky. (Aren’t they always though?) We got to the airport and took the elevator down to the subway station; even after only doing this once I felt like a pro who knew exactly what she was doing. This time we were all equipped with our Chengdu transportation passes provided by the school (except for Mason because he has forgotten everything that is actually important on this trip) and were ready to board the subway. On the way we definitely stood out as a noisy group of Americans; it’s a stereotype for a reason. We made our connection and walked past all the food stalls towards the exit. Mei Mei, Nigel, Meredith’s sister, and her sister’s friend all took off in another direction with the plan that we would meet back up in the evening to ride back home together. When we left the subway station everyone stopped to look around and take everything in. Shawn found a bubble tea shop that he really wanted to try so we stopped there to order drinks and find the nearest trustworthy ATM. My stomachache had returned this morning and the only thing that seemed to be able to alleviate the pain was to continue walking. I told Meredith that I would keep walking and meet back up with them in a second. After a full lap around the block I decided it was probably best to start heading back but when I returned only Shawn and Annette were sitting in the window seats of the tea shop. I told Shawn that I would go find the rest of the group, who was in search of an ATM, so I took a photo of his phone screen with the directions and went on my way again. I really like walking alone in such a large city because there’s a weird place that I can go to mentally where it’s just me and a billion other people who don’t speak my language and somehow I find that peaceful. Obviously it’s not top of a mountain or stargazing peaceful, but it is somewhat relaxing in its own right.
As I was walking towards the mall with nine stories and a food court I noticed a intricately patterned, maroon collared shirt in my peripheral vision. This outfit belonged to none other than Mason Smith who was standing in the side alley of the mall with Daniel outside of what appeared to be a bathroom. I walked over to them and we waited for the girls to come out while chatting about “Colorado culture” and our mutual upset stomach feelings. At last the girls came out and we picked up Annette and Shawn before returning to the shopping center area still in search of an ATM. It came as no surprise that a large group of American students would attract much attention here and we were soon bombarded by some people wanting to take photos and a man trying to sell us a weird card with sports logos on it. We took the photo and brushed off the man trying to sell us stuff before asking one store worker where our elusive ATM was.
He pointed us towards the south and after walking for a moment we discovered where he was directing us to: China’s Agricultural Bank. We needed an ATM though the Bank of China instead and decided that maybe it was best to follow Shawn’s Baidu Maps app to get us there. It said that the ATM’s were located inside the basement of the shopping mall that we had our Thai food at last time we were in Chengdu. We took the steps down only to find a Bank of China ATM that was out of order. I approached a greeter to ask him where another one would be and luckily for me we just learned how to say down one floor in class because that’s exactly what he said. After a quick withdrawal, Daniel and Meredith’s KFC run, and my goofing around on an escalator we were ready to meet back up with Mason and Annette who were looking around at the Nike store upstairs. Mason was teaching Annette the names of all the shoes and testing her with shoe trivia.
When we all reconvened Meredith showed us the underground knock off shop that she, Citlali, and Elijah had gone to last weekend. It was almost too overwhelming to handle. There were so many brands that I know (obviously faked versions of brands I know is what I should say) and plenty of ones that I don’t. We stumbled across one store selling “Ikea” t-shirts that read “IKEC” on many different fonts and color schemes… of course I had to get it. Mason bought a shirt that says “Taures” and then explains the meaning of the zodiac sign in broken English on the back.
We then moved on to another store that sold Supreme t-shirts written in Comic Sans, truly iconic. Mason bought a white one while Daniel bought it in blue. Next came the true gem of this entire excursion: a store so confusing that it puts Japanese street style to shame. There were brand crossovers that you would never think would happen such as Balenciaga and Looney Toons, Betty Boop and Louis Vuitton, and Mason’s personal favorite shirt that had endangered animal facts printed on the bottom of an oversized t-shirt with a Lisa Frank style kitten portrait on the front complete with bedazzled embellishments. I’m not joking when I say this store was something else entirely. You could spend hours admiring each t-shirt like a work of art, but all good things must come to an end so we reluctantly left. Mason passed by a shoe store that had a pair of shoes that looked like they belonged as part of a Lego primary color palette. He thought they were the coolest things ever but China being China does not stock a size 45 men’s shoe in their stores so he left empty handed. We walked past a few more store and met up with Annette before finding another pair of those same Lego tennis shoes. Again, Mason had no luck finding his size and after this try it seemed as if he would give up but alas he preserved. There was one woman who even walked down the hall to see if anyone else had the shoes in his size. They had a size 43 which were able to slide onto his feet but fit more like an ugly stepsister’s foot would in the fairy tale of Cinderella (maybe Goldilocks and the Three Bears is a better allusion). There was little time left but he was determined to fins these shoes before we had to leave. We walked past one store and asked if they had the shoes in a larger size; to our surprise she said they had a pair of size 44. When she brought them out Mason’s eyes got really wide and I knew he wasn’t going to leave without a pair. His feet were tightly squeezed against the edge, but it’s nothing a little blowdryer and some socks can’t fix to stretch them out.
Meredith called to ask where we were since we agreed to meet in an hour at the entrance. Time flies when you spend it looking at crazy t-shirts and trying to find needle in a haystack shoes. We were about to start towards the entrance when Daniel saw a black shirt with a giant embodied rooster on it. I don’t know what clicked in his mind but all he said was, “I have to buy this,” and next thing I knew we were walking out of the underground knock off mall with Lego shoes, Ikea and Supreme t-shirts, and a giant embroidered rooster tee. We met the rest of the group at H&M across the street. They had been waiting on Shawn who wanted to buy every mandarin collar shirt that exists in this world. After what felt like twenty minutes of standing he emerged from the back of the store with a bag in hand and NO mandarin collared shirts. Apparently, H&M doesn’t even have mandarin collared shirts, but he still wanted to go shopping so that was a thing that happened.
It was time for lunch and all anyone wanted was some A.C. so someone suggested going to the mall that Daniel, Meredith, and I had already eaten at last time and knew was good. We told them about the many restaurant options on the eighth and ninth floors before everyone agreed and we loaded the elevator to go up. If you’re an active blog reader (hello my sister Anna, this is for you) you may remember last Saturday’s post when I said that we had a crowded elevator. Well this crowded elevator put last week’s one to shame. I was practically in a sandwich with Sarah and Mason. If you even moved your head it would be in the face of the person next to you and what makes this whole situation worse is that the woman who was pressing the elevator buttons seemed to be incapable of actually doing that correctly. She clicked five but no one in the elevator even asked for the fifth floor. She then closed the doors and they opened back up again… AT THE FIFTH FLOOR! Finally the doors opened to the seventh floor where we all had to exit the elevator and then squish back inside because the people who needed to go to floor seven were conveniently standing in the very back of the elevator. When we made it to floor nine everyone was just ready to breathe again. We couldn’t decide on what to eat until Daniel mentioned the other restaurants down one level so we decided to explore floor eight. If you see where I’m going with this, yes, it meant that we would have to get on another elevator. This time, however, we were the only people on it and so it was a much more desirable experience. We saw two Japanese restaurants, which everyone agreed upon, and I just liked the aesthetic of the second one so we ended up eating there.
It was called Ogura and was constructed of raw bamboo that had what looked like tables where you sat on the floor inside. We caught a glimpse of the table situation that included people putting their feet in a box below the table but didn’t realize what our experience would be until we went inside. They had us take off our shoes and press our feet down on the padded bamboo mat flooring. (It was supposedly softer than some people’s beds which is rough.) We were then lead to a private room near the front that had a low sitting table and chair backs pushed underneath it. You would climb into the chair and tuck your feet under the table where the floor underneath was heated and slowly warmed our bare feet. Everything about the room was cozy and I immediately just wanted to go to sleep. We cozied in and began flipping through the menu to find what dishes we would all share.
Thankfully they had photos and everyone was fine eating whatever was chosen so Meredith did the ordering with the exception of a few interjections of people’s personal preferences for the dishes. I think she did a pretty great job because soon we were gifted beautiful plates and bowls of beef and rice from a clay pot, miso soup, gyoza, tempura vegetables, sushi, beef skewers, and plenty of tea. For dessert we had a sampling platter with matcha ice cream, red bean, and these little balls that were similar to mochi per Shawn’s request to try it all.
By this time we were full of food, had warmed feet, and shared great conversation so no one wanted to leave. We ended up staying there for about three hours just sitting around the table talking to each other; that’s how you know you’ve found a great group of friends. We also learned some very interesting things about each other such as the following:
-Daniel plays the organ… like straight church, million dollar organ and he possibly wants to have an organ minor in college
-Mason accidentally won the Scholastic National Poetry Competition and was flown out to Carnegie Hall where his work was published in an anthology
-Sarah does nutrition quiz bowl and can recite more facts about chickens than anyone ever needs to know
I also made Sarah laugh really hard when I told her that last night my Ba Ba said I was like his daughter now and officially part of the family so my name should be Ye Rui Ya, however, I compromised saying it should be Ye Ma Rui Ya instead. I also had a real in depth conversation with Meredith about college and the future and the whole application process. Bless her heart for next year and thank the Lord that I’m past that now. When we finally decided it was time to go we emerged from our room to find that everyone had left and the restaurant was closing for its midday break. We paid the approximately $12 tab, really a steal for everything we ate and how long we stayed there, and headed back into yet another crowded elevator. After leaving the peaceful seclusion of our private room the whole world felt loud and intrusive. We continued walking forward past more little shops and knick knack stores. We stopped by one called Kilo & Meter where Meredith bought some shirts for her brothers and kept walking deeper outside of the tourist areas. We stopped for some refreshing ice cold kuangquenshui (mineral water) when I spotted some wonderfully smelling loaves of bread. Meredith knew exactly what they were because a boy at her school brought one in every day: pineapple bread. She really wanted to try one so I split it with her and we were off. The break was sweet and the pineapple filling obviously made it all the better. 
Some of the host families will give their student a loaf of bread every morning, which I definitely think would make me never want to eat bread again, however, since I haven’t eaten bread in about a month this seemed like a good buy. We walked and listened to Sarah talk about spreading during debate before Shawn spotted a giant office building and suggested we try and make it to the roof (don’t worry that is perfectly normal here in China). We crossed a pedestrian bridge and had a stranger take this adorable group photo and then crossed the street to wait for Shawn to pop into a Tissot store to admire their watches then not buy anything. We made it to the entrance of the SAC building (as we found out it was called) and attempted to work our American charm to gain access to the roof. 
The desk attendants were not buying it and turned us away despite our best efforts. We were about to walk away defeatedly before Shawn reached out to two young professionals who had passes to get to the elevators. They said they could only go to the fourth floor and that it was just office spaces. He reasoned for them for quite a while trying to get them to break but they just apologized saying they only had access to the fourth floor so we gave up. It looked as if despite our best efforts we would have to find another building to access but we still got to see the inside foyer of this building which was incredibly aesthetically pleasing. Just look at it… it’s absolutely magnificent.
We found another tall building that looked like it had a cool roof and started walking towards it. There would be no giving up today. I spotted a giant tiled mural of a panda so we had to stop for a little photo op before finally continuing our quest. By this time we were well past the tourist boundaries of Chengdu and found ourselves in a district full of office buildings and knock off Apple stores.
We entered the building with what appeared to be rooftop access, however, it was just another extremely nice foyer with fancy chairs and a long line of businessmen waiting to talk to the front desk workers. We slid past them towards some escalators on the left side of the building and rode them up to the third floor. We exited onto another staircase that took us outside and eventually found ourselves passing an outdoor patio area littered with succulents. There was also a sign that said ‘Hoegarden’ which was fun to pose with. We were intrigued and began to walk inside, little did we know that it would be the beginning of another relaxing tea time. Sarah and I searched for teapots as gifts to our families but they were incredibly expensive. We still admired the shelves of oddities, trinkets, and beautiful pieces of art. I definitely have a thing for bookcases and really just good design in general so I was content just walking around and taking photos.
When I returned to the table people had ordered drinks and I felt bad to not get one so I asked the server what her favorite milk tea was and she just pointed to one that said red tea. I was mildly intrigued and up for anything so I agreed with her and took her recommendation. While we were waiting Annette updated her Snapchat story (it’s truly iconic and really just a carefully curated masterpiece) and snapped many photos of the group, after all it was golden hour.
Our drinks arrived in beautiful tea sets and mine had a Panda made from who knows what on the top foam layer of my drink, adorable. After everyone was finished snapping photos I was ready to try it because I still had no idea what I ordered. Turns out it was basically the same as the ‘Cheese Milk Cover Green’ at Tea & Brown, just with red tea. I wasn’t the biggest fan, but it was a ¥38 drink so I felt obliged to finish. We all feasted on the dried dates that were in a cup with each tea set and had a momentary freakout when someone’s dad said not to eat them. It was a false alarm, which even if it wasn’t there was really nothing we could do since we had already eaten three plates of them.
Again we practically had to peel ourselves out of the couch because the tea was delicious and the ambiance was so inviting but eventually was had to part ways. As we exited some of us remembered the task that we came here to search for and the girls wanted to go back to IFS and see the panda store again. Well I thought that it was just Sarah and Meredith who wanted to go and I wanted to stay and get to the top of a building so I thought Annette would come with, but after I got on the escalator I turned around and she was going down the stairs too. It was just me and the boys on a mission to get to one of these rooftops. We started in the building we tried to access earlier and then moved to a place that was more like a mall than an office building. It looked nice from the exterior but after walking past a beautiful entrance and seeing water spewing from a pipe onto the floor and no one was there trying to fix it we decided it might be best if we didn’t try to ride an elevator up 40 floors to the top. We asked one worker how to get to the highest roof in the area and he pointed us in the general direction of a large shiny building towering over the rest. We walked in through a back entrance and went straight to the elevator to see if we could get up to the top floors. I think we must have needed a card in order to get to any of the room floors. We tried pressing all the buttons and then Shawn skimmed button number 27 and to our surprise it lit up. Next to the button was a plaque that read ‘Vantage XXVII’ and the one above it was captioned “iridium spa’. These were very odd plaques but we didn’t care because Vantage XXVII would bring us to the rooftop. We exited the elevator and walked through the double french doors that opened to a beautiful rooftop bar. I assumed it would be a rooftop restaurant or something but this was an American chain hotel so I guess it makes sense that it wasn’t.
A man dressed in a suit greeted us and let us choose our own lounge chairs. There were large couches and chairs scattered across the roof overlooking the city below. The view was exactly what we had been hoping for and since no one else was on the roof it meant that we could wander around every corner to take photos. The man who greeted us introduced himself as Mark Chen and handed us the menus. After much deliberation we ordered some mocktails and then went exploring. 
Mr. Chen asked why the four of us were in Chengdu and how long we would be staying. Even though he said all of this in almost perfect English, Shawn insisted on responding in Chinese. Still Mr. Chen continued in his impressive English and we talked about America in comparison to China and our expectations versus the reality that we were experiencing here. It was great conversation and soon enough our drinks were ready. I’m not really sure what everyone got but mine had rosemary and passionfruit, Daniel’s was watermelon flavored, Shawn’s had an orange rind in his, and Mason’s was la jiao (hot pepper) flavored complete with a full sprig of the peppercorns in it. They were really pretty and the lighting was beautiful, thus explaining these photos below:
Nigel began texting Shawn saying that we needed to meet back up soon to leave Chengdu. We said our final goodbyes to Mr. Chen and the boys added him on WeChat promising to keep in touch. We loaded back into the elevator and headed for the exit. We piled into a taxi and someone told the driver we were headed towards Taipingyuan, which was our second subway stop not the place we were supposed to meet up with everyone. About halfway through our ride there I noticed that I didn’t recognize any of the buildings in the area. Now, yes, I understand that I’ve only been to downtown Chengdu once and I am in no way an expert but I do have pretty good spacial recognition and am very directionally sound; none of this was familiar. the boys agreed and then we realized that he was taking us to the second subway stop like Shawn had told him instead of the one near IFS. We had to stop him and ask to turn around to get to the correct subway stop but by this time Shawn’s phone had died and there was really no way to get a hold of anyone through WeChat without wifi. We had already told them we were coming and decided to just hope for the best. We returned to IFS where Shawn and Daniel split off to find a charging cable for Shawn’s phone and Mason and I kept walking to try and regroup with everyone. Sure enough we found them at the entrance to the subway station and went inside to grab dinner from the food stalls. I beelined it straight to the cong you bing stall where we got our scallion pancakes last time and happily shared my order with everyone who hadn’t been there before. This time they gave me correct change but they still didn’t have that soy milk Daniel and I wanted to share. Why even have it on the menu if you won’t even restock it in three weeks? Sure enough their tv was still playing the 2016 Victoria’s Secret fashion show, something I would not think of China to do, but it was fine because I think it’s much more enjoyable to watch them expertly pour the crepe batter out and construct a delicious handheld Chinese burrito than watch unrealistic models flaunt lingerie. I digress.
We all had our subway passes, except for Mason, so I had to take him to buy one at a ticket machine that was on the opposite side of the station. Since it was the evening rush hour people were swarming the machines trying to reload their cards and buy fares all at the same five machines even when there were others scattered about the station, you just need to know where they are. At last Mei Mei and her friends found us in the station and we were ready to go. This time I knew to put my scallion pancake in my bag, opposite of what Candy had told me before, and breezed past security. We followed the signs to get to the blue line and jammed ourselves in to the crowded subway car. This made the elevator feel like a mansion. We transferred lines and at last made it back to the airport, easy, but now came the hard part: finding our way back to Shuangliu. As we learned last time no taxis will take us back there so we have to find other means of transportation. I always leave this part to Mei Mei since she has all the apps (or as Chinese people call them A-P-P’s) for rideshares and I basically helpless when it comes to understanding characters. Sarah lives near the airport so her parents came to pick her up. Meredith’s dad was there as well which left Shawn, Annette, Mason, Daniel, and I to find rides. Annette, Shawn, and his little brother Nigel got into the first car that would take them back to Shuangliu meanwhile we were still stuck at the airport waiting for the next one. I’m not really sure if Chinese Ubers are just really inefficient because it’s really easy to get a taxi or if Mei Mei just didn’t call one until after we waited for an hour but regardless we still waited for an hour. Just like last time with Citlali we were sitting there on the steps of the subway station waiting for our ride. Meredith’s family was nice enough to stay with us and help us pass the time. We took plenty of modeling shots of Mason in his new shoes despite the major fashion faux pas he was committing mixing those colors and patterns. 
Him and Daniel also tried to balance on the tiny little poles they have in front of the station which I would say they almost successfully accomplished their goal. We made it back to Shuangliu and got dropped off at the gate of the school before calling another taxi for the boys and getting one for ourselves. It wasn’t until we got home that I realized it was 11:00 and knew the foredooming talk would not be good. I learned how to say “I’m sorry we’re so late, but Mei Mei did a very good job of making sure all the American students got home safely,” and practiced it to say to Ma Ma. She didn’t seem too happy at first but eventually said everything was okay and she just wanted us to be more cognizant of the time in the future. In our defense we would have gotten home perfectly fine if a taxi could drive us to Shuangliu instead of the Chinese Uber. I spent the rest of that evening laying in front of the air conditioner and tried to fall asleep until I remembered that I needed to check my emails from college today. The coordinator of the Chinese Flagship Program at Indiana University sent out a job openings page recruiting students for positions that upcoming school year. I knew that I wanted to work as the graphic designer, however, I couldn’t open the winmail.dat file she sent with the video. After countless times of trying to refresh my gmail page and figuring out how to open the impossible file I finally found a website to convert the attachment. It explained the positions and said that I needed to send in my cover letter and resume to her no later than July 30th. Yes, today was technically July 30th since I read the email at 12:15, however, Indiana is 12 hours behind China so I still had time to submit it. I finished my cover letter, updated my resume, and at 2:32 am I sent in my completed resume. Let’s just say I fell asleep very quickly.
Meals Miles & Marria 