Arrival in Chengdu

Today we woke up in Chengdu after a late drive from the airport. Teddy's aunt and uncle moved in with Teddy's parents for the week so we could use their house as a 'base of opperations' while we are here in Chengdu. WOW

We drank some coffee and walked over to meet teddy's parents and gave them some rose candy we had bough in GuiZhou, and some shredded beef snack we picked up from Kevin's father's factory. We looked at photos Teddy's father had taken during the earthquake and ate a big lunch with his family.

We then went to ground zero where the earthquake happened. We walked through a field of trailor homes the residents were temporarily (or permanently) residing. A few of the trailors were school trailors. Next to the houses were a row of shops which faced the main road. These shops sold various offerings for the deceased. Paper shoes, dress, cell phone and make up for girls -- and shoes, tie dress shirt, and a cell phone for the guys. You unwrap them from their plastic encasing and burn them -- sending the paper objects to the dead. Other shops offered paper money, Plastic gold bricks, bank notes (titled hell's currency), paper cars, licenses, id cards, bank cards, houses and more.

We walked up to a ruins which used to be a school. When the earthquake struck 2,000 students died leaving only the 200 hundred students who were out on recess.

We walked further down the main road and came to a gate we could not pass. They told us that we could, if we wanted, walk up the road and look down on the rest of the city from a designated spot. On the road we looked down and saw the city where more than 300,000 people were killed. The city was nestled in the mountains and a huge landslide burried a school and many houses - losing those within. Along the road there were DVDs and pictures being sold showing before and after views of the city.

If 800,000 Chinese people were killed in the earthquake, the ripple effect is staggering. We went and ate some hot pot - duck's tongue, cow stomache, rabbit, pig intestine, and liver.