Day 2 started with an early bus eight-hour bus trip to Kangding. In Shanghai, I live on Kangding Street, so I was excited to visit the namesake of my street, but first I had to go through the mountains! Exciting at first, after seven days of mountainous bus travel, they would grow very annoying.

Where we stopped for lunch.

What we had for lunch. This dish is called huiguorou. In Shanghai, it's a pretty bland combination of slimy cabbage, slimy beef, and... that's about it. But in Sichuan, it was much more satisfying dish. Sichuan folks replace the cabbage with green onions (like mountains, green onions were to be ever-present on the trip. Unlike mountains, they did not get old), and the slimy beef is replaced with crispy, fatty beef. This dish had very little meat actually, it was almost entirely crispy fat. And the best part of the food in Sichuan was the heat they used. The food was much spicier than Shanghai food.

More Mountains.

Kangding, a city wedged in between two mountains trying not to fall into the river running through it. The bus arrived unexpectedly early, which was nice except in the bustle of getting off the bus, I lost my iPod shuffle.

Teatime. Gross teatime. Avoid Buttermilk tea. Sounds delicious right? Like a cousing of Hogsmeade's Butterbeer? It's not at all related. Imagine fermented Alfredo sauce, thinned down.

Foreigners attract attention.

Fruit Market

This is the lady who made us breakfast on the third day. Steamed bread.

We took a hike out of Kangding to see a little bit of the countryside. Here's an interesting building that I thought was unique at the time. I was to learn that the colorful, geometric decoration is pretty common out here.