On the interviewing front (officially the reason for this whole trip) things took a turn for the fortunate on the Changsha to Chongqing train, when Sichuanese garrulousness and the novelty of our Scrabble-playing finally resulted in throngs of curious Chinese conversationalists. While it also resulted in Julian being tricked into eating spicy cow intestine jerky and a girl dumping a whole bag of fiery pickled dry hot peppers into my instant noodles, as well as my trying the spiciest peppercorn duck necks in all the land, some interviewing was actually completed. I'm not complaining about the peppercorn duck necks, though. Those were really good and they made my face numb, like I had been given a shot of Novocaine even. We are deep in the heart of hotness now, both temperature-wise (with Chongqing hitting 99 degrees by 9:30 in the morning when we stepped off the train) and food-wise (what with the spicy duck necks, the Sichuanese rabbit and chicken dry pot we had today in Chengdu, and, well, absolutely everything in Hunan).

Chengdu is stubbornly smoggy, like all the other cities were supposed to be but weren't, and we're staying in the kind of hostel we have mercifully avoided until now: full of Europeans drinking beer and eating grilled cheese sandwiches in the cutesy English-adorned lobby. It's funny, because there is bathroom graffiti urging resident tourists to avoid being insular, advising them to try hotpot, ride local buses, and go to the markets, but there everyone sits anyway, watching the Olympics and Facebooking on the VPNed public computer. Yes, I am aware that I am being too judgmental.

Anyway, today we explored Sichuan Normal University and learned to play what they call 'snooker' in the basement of the gymnasium. We've actually been playing a lot of pool, despite the impression this journal has given that we just eat exotica, get massages, and sweat.