Breakfast etiquette and teddy-bears / Chengdu - Emei Shan4 May 2008
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The teddy bear in my room
I am the only foreigner staying in the hotel. Went down to breakfast where there was somebody standing on the dining-room stage with a microphone trying to flog paintings to the patrons. While this din was going on, one or two of the locals were engaged in the ancient Chinese art of snorting and hacking phlegm from the deepest reaches of their respiratory system before sending a well-aimed 'greenie' flying into the nearest rubbish bin. Bon appetit.
Escaped to the bus station which was much better organised than I had previously experienced. The ticket was all in Chinese characters but people were pretty helpful in getting me and my luggage through the X-ray machine (!) to the right bus. The bus was doing fine and then for no apparent reason we suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere and had to transfer to another bus which seemed to be exactly the same as the one we'd just got off. Weird.
Emei Shan town is at the bottom of a 3,100 metre (10,000 feet in old money) peak, about 140 kms from Chengdu. Checked into the Teddy Bear Hotel (seriously) - my room is very good and has a large teddy-bear sitting in a chair. I promise to take a picture so you won't think I was pissed when writing this.
