Early Sunday morning I was awoken by my alarm at 6:00 AM, it was too early to be awake, but I took the initiative to get in the shower. We had a long day ahead of us and needed an early start. Restrooms around here are often referred to as the WC (water closet), thanks to the Brits. Well the bathroom in this hotel was a literal water closet; a closet sized room with a squat toilet in the middle of the floor, a shower head over it that drained into the same hole and a tiny sink off to the side. It was functional, you just had to make sure when showering you kept your eyes open and maneuvered around the hole in the floor. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get a picture of it actually.

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.

» Read more: Chengdu: Guanxian Dam & Qingcheng Mtn.