Sichuan - Day 1

Today is Day 1 of the Sichuan Spring Break trip. So far, it's been okay. We started off the day by waking up too early (6 AM) and heading to the airport. But they forget to mention that we weren't flying out of Capital Airport, which is the HUGE airport for Beijing, but instead we went out into lord-knows-where to this other airport that was quite small, to say the least. It was reminiscent of the tiny airport from the Yunnan trip in Xishuangbanna, complete with like 3 gates and a few check-in windows. Not big enough for a huge group of American college students. We formed a line to get our boarding passes that went out the door, the airport was that small. All the Chinese people there were staring, no doubt completely confused why a huge group of foreigners was at this minuscule airport.
So then we boarded the plane and I was surprised at it's size - 3 seats on each side of the middle path. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but it's just so funny: Flying in China is INSANE. The pilots are allegedly trained by the military (ie. fighter pilots) and therefore their style of flying, especially taking off, ascending, descending, and landing, is like a scene from Top Gun. Your stomach does gymnastics on the plane, it's so strange, I feel like I'm in Top Gun and I can almost hear that Kenny Loggins song "Danger Zone," in the background. Anyways, we flew into Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, but we couldn't even stay there, as was the original plan! Sichuan is right next to Tibet and there have been many Tibetans rioting in the streets of Chengdu because of the hostile situation in Tibet at the moment. So obviously TBC wouldn't let us go to Chengdu and I'm really bummed about that.
So we drove out of Chengdu to this famous mountain, Qingcheng, and we hung out in this village, Tai'an Old Town, which was pretty neat. We took cable cars up and down the mountain... the scenery was gorgeous, of course.
After that we went to try Sichuan's most famous cuisine - hot pot. Let me say this, they aren't kidding when they call it "hot pot." There's a basin in the middle of a big table that has like a mini stove in it, and they place a big pot of oils and spices on the burner. When the liquid starts bubbling, we put various foods in the pot to cook, such as meat, potatoes, noodles, and vegetables. This isn't any ordinary sauce the food is cooking in - it's literally brimming-full of hot dried red peppers and other peppers that are dried or in pods. The liquid is LETHAL. One bite and your nose leaks like Niagara Falls and you start coughing like you have TB. Your lips, mouth, and tongue lose feeling at some point. Regardless of this, hot pot is great. There's a smaller pot in the middle of the big one that is "neutral," meaning that it won't destroy your mouth.
Tomorrow is pandas. I can't wait.