Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

Sichuan Hotpot!!!

Chengdu is the capital of the Sichuan Province and is located almost smack in the middle of China. But because there isn't much notable to its west (and most of China live on the east coast) it's considered part of western China.

We arrived into Chengdu mid morning on a short flight from Beijing.

Walking down the alley next to the Wenshu Monastry

It was surprisingly warmer than we had anticipated and a beautiful day. On our way to the hostel our bellies rumbled and we were fortunate to fall into one of Chengdu's most favoured past times: eating hotpot.  

The Sichuan province is home to China's spiciest foods; food renowned for making a grown man weep (they even have a dish called crying noodles). So as novices we jumped straight in, went for the spiciest dish with all the trimmings... and cried we did, all through the most delicious hotpot yet!
Local food is very spicy because of the Sichuan Flower Pepper or huājiāo (although not similar to chili or black pepper) it actually creates a tingly numbness in your mouth. 

Cold beer with a view

After lunch and putting down our bags our first stop was to explore the city! We hiked to several of our tourist book's recommendations, including the huge statue of Mao and along several of the older style streets. At 6pm we marched over to the Wenshu Monastry and listened to the Monks sing and chant.    

Chengdu is commonly believed to be the birth place of Taoism, a religion which has been practiced by many Chinese since the late 4th century BC. 

Dinner was a cold beer in the roof top garden (smiley face).     

                                                  

Adolescent Panda bears eating breakfast!

The following day we were up with the sun and were the first in line for our tickets into the Chengdu Giant Panda Sanctuary. The Panda Sanctuary is the largest remaining habitat for Giant Pandas in the world. Giant Pandas are currently one of the most endangered animals in the world and are considered China's National Treasure. Currently there are only 1500 living Pandas in the world, with 80% of them calling the Sichuan Province home.                                                  

Nap time in a tree

Chengdu has established a world renowned breeding and research base for giant pandas and is home to several hundred absolutely adorable bears!                

Yum Yum! 

Eating my breakfast.....

We spent the better half of a morning talking to and watching the bears playing with and eating their bamboo.

Look away! Eek! Rabbit head

After the panda experience we returned to the hostel and went to lunch with some of the Chinese staying in the room next door. It wasn't exactly an appetising lunch, horrid might be a better word.

It seems Sichuan food isn't just spicy but also includes.... well everything. Sichuan is the place you hear about, no no, not chicken feet - those are so last year... but the more juicer meals. Rabbit heads, pig trotter, brains, stir fried cartilage, cow ears.. it also comes served up steaming hot and over spiced.                                           

A lunch of pig trotter? No thank-you!

Ok, so we tried the pig trotters and to give them credit the flavour was nice but theres no meat on a pig foot! It was literally just a suck the skin off type of meal. Hmph.
                                                                     After our gruesome lunch endeavour we hit the road on a city bicycle tour!

John on the cycling city tour

The bike tour was an adrenaline rush; we weaved in and out of the city traffic like pro's.

The tour was very educational and we saw quite a few random things that aren't in the guide book. Like 'flying rocks' (asteroids) that fell across the city in the early 1600's and we cycled through the local university campus.

The tour was lead by a local Chinese and we stopped at several of her favourite street food vendors. John tried the cold noodle (priced at a reasonable 80c) and Kara tried the sweet white fungus soup which is supposed to be good for the skin!

Enjoying cold noodle! 

The following day was May Day!

May 1st is China's national labour day and an excellent time for everyone to test the limits of the Chinese infrastructure. We decided that it would be ideal to leave the city and head out to nature- one of Chengdu's surrounding mountains. But apparently the 7 million other residents of Chengdu decided the same thing.

We squeezed into a subway carriage towards the train station, waited in line for about 20min just to exit the subway, got in another line to buy the tickets only to discover they were all sold out (well, in hindsight we should have expected this...).

Shopping (Kara on the right)

Visiting Chengdu riverside

So we headed to the bus station in hope for better luck, however luck was not to be found. There were so many people there that we decided it would be more relaxing to go shopping in the city!

Of course, the shopping district was also packed with people - where do they all come from!!? China truly has a tremendous amount of people and for anyone wanting to visit here we recommend you make sure your visit doesn't overlap with any Chinese holidays, unless you want to experience the chaos for yourself.

So after a day of wandering the streets of the beautiful Chengdu we boarded a night sleeper train to Xi'ian!

Tot siens,
John and Kara

(More Sichuan food below)

Everything on a stick

A dinner of Sea Snails