Home From Vacation, Chengdu Hostel Recommendation

I am back in Chongqing after a full week away at my conference/music festival trip. It was great! I'm glad to be home, though. I got a sinus infection boo hiss, so I am laying low today while I wait for the antibiotics to really kick in. But, just wanted to mention a few things now:

1. Best taxi moment of the trip (and possibly of the last two years): our young taxi driver taking a few of us from the train station to our hotel asked me in Chinese if I like Lady Gaga. I said yes, knowing how popular she is here. The driver popped in her CD and started singing loudly to 'Bad Romance'; he had no idea what he was saying, but he was going for it, and it was covered in awesome sauce.  And of course I sang along, and when we got there he knocked five yuan off the meter! So my new nickname is 'The Taxi Whisperer.' I think I'm going to write a book just about about my taxi experiences in China.

2. The music festival was so much like a music festival in the U.S., we sometimes forgot where we were. As R. said, "I keep getting shocked by hearing people walking past us speaking Chinese!" It was a pretty cool park venue, and event. My new favorite band is Pet Conspiracy; they drink crazy juice for breakfast,  but they were a lot of fun. E. and V. and I worked it in the stage front mosh pit at another show, luckily no lost shoes or injuries. (We were laughing pretty hard imagining having to call our Peace Corps Chinese doctor and explain we got injured in a mosh pit; I could just hear her: "A what pit?" They love those kinds of phone calls, I know.) When am I ever going to be near a Chinese mosh pit again? So I had to do it.

E. took lots of pictures, I'll post a few when she sends them to me.

3. After the hotel (which Peace Corps paid for during the conference), those of us staying for the festival switched to the Sim's Cosy Guest House backpacking hostel, and it was really, really great. In fact, I liked it even better than the hotel. Our room was like a little cabin, with wood floors and furniture, a koi fish stream just outside, plants and trees and a little wooden porch with chairs. The garden, restaurant and bar areas were charming but spacious, lots of hot water, and there is free wifi everywhere on the grounds. And a free DVD screening room with couches. I'm pretty sure we'll go back another weekend, just to hang out. Chengdu is home to the Panda Sanctuary as well as being a major stopping city to get permits into Tibet, so it is a very popular stopover for travelers. There were backpackers from all over the world at the hostel.  We had such a great time, we even skipped the last day of the festival and hung out all day at the hostel, playing cards, watching movies, and chatting in the gardens. And all for about $6 a day. If you are going to Chengdu, stay here if you can.

I'm back on my own computer so I have access to my VPN again, so I'll be catching up on all of your exciting lives!