Monday I got to sleep in a little bit, and by little, I mean like 7:30 AM because I convinced Jinfei that she should shower first. After the previous miserably cold and wet day, I didn’t even want to leave the hotel if it was raining, so I looked out the window. It was raining. Despite not leaving the hotel until 8:30 AM we were clearly the first ones to leave because the front door was still locked. Then again, there’s a good chance there wasn’t too many people staying at the hotel that night. Jinfei and I joined Zhu Mangqi for breakfast again, some vegetables, a boiled egg, a few baozi and we were ready to go. Fortunately while we were eating breakfast the rain stopped. I remember thinking that it could actually be a pleasant day!

A couple bus rides, and about an hour after breakfast the three of us arrived at the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center. It is here that many of the only 1000 pandas that exist were conceived, born, and raised. I was pretty excited to see some live pandas and because it wasn’t raining. ThePanda Breeding and Reasearch Center was like a large park, with habitats for the adult and sub-adult giant pandas (the black and white ones) as well as the red pandas. There was also a nursery which housed the baby pandas until they were old enough to live in their habitat outdoors. The baby pandas we’re probably the coolest, and cutest thing I saw the whole day, but unfortunately they wouldn’t allow pictures of them.

Perhaps due to the fact that it was semi-cold outside, or that it was a Monday, there were very few people in the Panda park. We were able to go everywhere without running into other large groups, and without disturbing the pandas too much. It was actually a perfect day to  see the pandas, and thoroughly enjoyable.

After seeing the panda center Jinfei and I split ways with Zhu Mangqi, as she needed to go back to school. We took the bus downtown to the Wu Hou district. Here we found a nice hostel to stay at for the night as well as other attractions. Just a few blocks from the hostel was Jinli street.

Jinli street was once one of the busiest commercial streets in the Shu Kingdom (221-263) and is now a magnificent step back in time. At the entrance to the street is a large archway that bears the name “Jinli Street” and within is lined with traditional style buildings selling Tibetan goods (this is a Tibetan area of the city) as well as some wonderfully spicy Sichuan snacks. We took a stroll down this street, sampling many different snacks, as well asadmiring the beauty of the street. As it went from light to dusk to dark, the street changed from interesting to simply beautiful with all the red lanterns and fantastic lighting. I was quite impressed.

Once we finished gorging ourselves on Sichuan snacks, Jinfei and I decided we’d go back to Chunxi Lu and do a little shopping.

It was on the bus ride from Wu Hou Ci to Chunxi Lu that I was seriously impressed by the honesty of the Chinese people. The bus we were on was pretty packed, as in no one was going anywhere except just barely inside the door when getting on the bus. People that boarded via the back door of the bus could have just as easily rode and never paid, the money slot and card machine was in front and there was no way to get up there. Not to mention, no one would notice if they only rode for a few stops. But no, no one did that. They actually passed the cash or their bus cards all the way up to the front where someone standing in front would deposit the cash or swipe their card and pass it back. I was sincerely impressed, the cooperation and honesty of the Chinese was outstanding. I find it hard to believe that the same thing would happen in a city in America under the same circumstances.

Due to the cold weather recently I was in the market for a winter jacket and there were plenty of clothiers along Chunxi Lu. I didn’t find a jacket that fit unfortunately, but I did find an awesome pair of insulated Nike running pants. You see, I haven’t been running in 2 weeks. Almost immediately after the run around the city wall, the temperatures plummeted and it snowed, leaving me no desire to go running and freeze my ass off. But now, with my amazingly warm running pants, I can go running again, and think nothing of the cold. (I actually used them this morning, and I can honestly say, they were worth the money.)

Following shopping Jinfei and I headed back to the hostel to get some rest. Tomorrow we would see a couple more sites and fly back to Xi’an.

See the Chengdu pictures here.

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