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.