Last day in Chengdu

Sunday was our last day in Chengdu. We had 2 shows and our first load out. In between shows I opted to go with one of our locals “Mao” and my translator “Preston” to the electronic plaza. We jump in a taxi and head off out of downtown Chengdu to pull up to a huge building with banners of stereo and camera advertisements. Inside is a flea market of nothing but electronic equipment. Anything and everything you could want from computer and cameras to transformers and fuses. I noticed a few recognizable names like canon, Nintendo, and Sony. Each company had there own booth set up and we perused the cases. I was excited to get some bootleg cds and DVDs. So up we climb through the building to the 5th floor and into the back room, where I was overwhelmed with Chinese woman trying to get me to buy there DVDs. After that stop Mao said he knew of another place to check out. So we head down the street past all the outside street vendors that had like printer ink and video games. We go into a back alley, through a private yard, into an apartment building, up 4 floors, into this guy’s living room, and I swear there must have been 10000 cds in his house. I looked through them and found 10 cds and all it ended up costing was 120 Yuan.

Load out in Chengdu was as expect. We started at 11 pm and finished at 630 in the morning. Not the most exciting way to end your stay in Chengdu but at least the first load out is over. We have 6 sea containers and it just took a long time to sort out everything from 3 weeks worth of a sit-down.

Upon parting ways with our translators of three weeks, Preston gave me a cool origami peacock made out of playing cards. I just hope it makes it back to the states safe. Work and the bullshit of dealing with guys that know nothing about theatre, Chengdu was a good place to spend 3 weeks.