Following breakfast we walked wandered around the park just west of Jinli street where I saw many retirees dancing, and practicing Tai Chi with fans, and swords. We then looked at a small temple, nothing too amazing, but some very nice scenery.

After the park we headed to Du Fu’s Thatched Cottage, a site that my Chinese father had suggested we see. The cottage was the home of Du Fu, a very famous Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty, over 1000 years ago. Along with the cottage remains, is a beautiful park, as well as the Gong Bu temple. Seeing the remains of a Chinese homestead from over a 1000 years ago gives an interesting perspective as to how the people lived in that time.

Finally it was time to head for the airport, our plane was leaving in 2 hoursand we didn’t want to miss this it. We headed back downtown near Chunxi Lu and found the bus to the airport.  The rest of the trip from the airport to home was rather uneventful, but I was certainly happy to be home. Chengdu was great fun, but who knew tourism could be so tiring?

See the Chengdu pictures here.

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.

After showering and grabbing some quick breakfast with Zhu Mangqi at her University cafeteria, Jinfei, me and Zhu Mangqi all headed for the bus. A bus ride, a taxi ride, and another bus ride later we finally arrived at the entrance to the Guanxian Dam park. Chengdu has had a promotion going on since shortly after the earthquake to promote tourism in the area, the Panda Card. I had read online that they stopped selling these over a month ago, but lo and behold, there are people everywhere around the touristy areas trying to make a buck by selling them at 3-4 times face value. I decided it’d be a good idea to pick one up, even paying 40 yuan (4 times the face value of 10 yuan) was still a good deal considering we’d be going to a few sites of interest and most of the admission tickets at these sites were 50-90 yuan each.

Guanxian Dam is located on the northwest outskirts of Chengdu. The Minjiang River splits into four tributaries near the town, two of which flow on either side of Chengdu. Over the centuries, a series of water systems have been developed at Guanxian, the first as far back as 350 BC The water has been diverted from Minjiang River to the nearby plains for irrigation. The Guanxian Dam area is largely a tribute to Li Bing and his sons who took it upon themselves to begin to dig diversions to bring water from the river to the villages nearly 33 centuries ago.

As interesting as the dam was,  the day was unfortunately pretty wet and cold with frequent drizzling, resulting in very wet and cold feet. Mid-way through the day I just wanted to go somewhere warm and put on new socks. After the Guanxian Dam we took another bus to the Qingcheng Mountain.

Qingcheng Mountain is one of the most famous taoist mountains in China. While housing many temples the mountain and the scenery itself is enough to enjoy climbing this mountain. The rain had finally let up when we arrived, but everything was still rather wet, this made for some very beautiful scenery as well as some of the cleanest air I had breathed in a while. We climbed to the peak of the mountain, only a couple mile walk, but in wet shoes, it might as well have been 20 miles.

After returning down the mountain we took another bus back to the  main bus station. Unfortunately we missed the last bus to take us back to the university area. Great. 3 cramped, cold buses, a half mile walk, and a random-guy-in-a-van ride later we finally arrived back, just in time for the 7:30 PM campus curfew. That night we upgraded hotels and stayed in a much nicer one for only 28 yuan more. This one had amenities like carpet, a see-through shower, good heat, and some place I could finally take off my nasty, wet shoes and socks.

It was a good day due to the sight-seeing and adventure, but a really crappy day due to the rain and cold. I hoped tomorrow would be better.

See the Chengdu pictures here.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of posts about my 4 day trip to Chengdu. The remaining posts will come in daily intervals over the next week.

Traveling to Chengdu this past weekend was my first time “jet-setting” across the country just to spend a weekend hanging out and experiencing another city. Chengdu is actually in the Sichuan province just south of Shaanxi, about 700 km away by car and about an hour in the air by plane. You may remember hearing about the Sichuan province due to the massive earthquake that occurred about 80 km northwest of Chengdu in May 2008.

Due to the fluctuating cold and warm weather lately there has often been quite a bit of fog in the mornings, and Saturday when the flight was supposed to leave was no exception. Upon arriving at the airport I discovered that there were people that had been waiting up to 36 hours to get on a flight out of Xi’an. This didn’t look good.

After being delayed for about 2 hours, they decided they could let flights to Chengdu check in. First come, first served. Fortunately Jinfei was able to work some magic and bat her eyelashes enough that the ticketing agent checked us in almost immediately while others continued to wait. We left the Xi’an airport in chaos about 90 minutes later.

An hour later the Airbus 319 landed in Chengdu and we caught a bus for 15 yuan to the downtown area. Upon our arrival we met up with one of Jinfei’s best friends, Zhu Mangqi. Zhu took us a few blocks to Chunxi Road, while it is

Chunxi Road

a real road, is is most commonly known for the large pedestrian mall with a variety of shopping, and typical “only in Sichuan” snacks directly next to it.

On Chunxi Road I had amazing snacks such as spicy duck neck (very spicy, very excellent!), as well as an assortment of super spicy pork on a stick, and tiny, deep-fried baozi (typically a stuffed, steamed bun). The people of Sichuan province are known for their amazingly spicy food. In fact even in Americanized Chinese restaurants you can usually get some kind of Sichuan or “Szechuan” chicken dish, and it’s probably one of the spiciest things on the menu. Because I love spicy food so much, this was almost like a dream come true. I tried everything, just to see which one was the spiciest and how spicy it would be before I couldn’t handle it. Glad to say I never got to the “can’t handle it” point, but who knows, maybe they were going easy on me because I’m a laowai. Guess I’ll never know.

By taxis, I mean guys who happen to own a van and will drive places for a fee.

After getting my fill of spicy snacks we headed for Zhu Mangqi’s university. I thought my university was out of the way, but her’s was worse. It didn’t take as long to get to, but it was more of a hassle. There’s only one bus to take, and it only goes about half way there, so we had to stop at a bus stop area where taxis often waited. By taxis, I mean guys who happen to own a van and will drive places for a fee. These taxis would drive us the rest of the way. So getting to her university was a bigger hassle and also cost quite a bit more than the 1.5 yuan i’m used to paying on the 336 to SUST.

After the long day of waiting around in the airport, and walking Chunxi Road, Jinfei and I found an inexpensive hotel near the university and got some rest for the next day.