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Published: April 28th 2007
Pandas, Chengdu
They are really cute in person! And no, this is not the Chester Zoo. Due to our extended stay in Hong Kong, we had to cut short our time in China and visit only 1 city outside Beijing. We selected Chengdu, in Sichuan province. We left Hong Kong early in the morning, and took a bus across the border to Shenzhen airport for our flight. Here, we recognized that unlike other places we'd visited, English wasn't going to be widely spoken in China!
After an uneventful flight, we arrived in Chengdu and our great hostel,
Sim's Cozy House, located in a traditional courtyard, with resident pet piglets. It served great (& spicy) Sichuan food and cheep Chinese beer, with a friendly atmosphere. Chengdu is in the middle of a wave of development, with streets being dug up for a new subway system, and many older residences either being renovated, or torn down to make way for modern tower blocks. There was a construction site next to our guest house, operating 24 hours, which was the only negative about our location. In the centre of the city is a large open square, presided over by a statue of Mao.
Unfortunately, Sharon was sick for much of our time in Chengdu, having caught a virus in
Mao in Chengdu
Always present in our travels in China, here's a Mao Tse Tung statue dominating the central square in Chengdu. Hong Kong. This ended up involving a trip to the hospital, with the guest house providing a note written in Chinese saying "please take us to the English-speaking doctor"! Thankfully, we were able to find the English-speaking doctor and obtain some antibiotics and painkillers.
While Sharon was recuperating, Richard went off on a tour of the Giant Panda Breeding Centre, on the edge of the city. The centre has 10 juvenile pandas, about 9 months old, who are very playful. The tour coincided with feeding time, so lots of activity. After eating so much bamboo, the pandas apparently sleep for much of the day. The tour was very informative and it was great to see the pandas up so close, in a semi-natural environment.
We also spent an afternoon in Renmin Park, a place that's as mad as a box of frogs. It's where much of the population comes to relax. People cluster around karaoke machines to watch entertainers perform, large groups of middle-aged women participate in some sort of group dancing, kind of like a slow-paced step-aerobics class, men fly colourful kites so high that they look like they could interfere with aircraft, and the locals indulge
Chinese Macarena in the Park, Chengdu
All around the parks, groups gathered to exercise, dance, sing karaoke and just relax. in a favorite pastime - drinking tea at one of the tea houses, while chatting with their friends. Take care with what you order though, as Richard ended up with the most bitter tea ever, buckwheat, maybe. As you sit by the lake drinking tea, men circulate pinging needles on a tuning fork, to advertise their ear cleaning services, while others offer to clean you shoes while you wait. People play a multitude of card games and of course, mah jong. The park also contains an odd monument to the 1911 revolution, led by railworkers and was in full bloom as spring gets underway in central China.
In the evening, we went to the Sichuan opera, which involved a series of short performances showcasing the range of entertainment, including dancing, music, theatre, acrobatics & juggling, fire breathing, opera and the famous mask-changing, where the actors change their masks many time in the blink of an eye.
We also found time to visit a couple of Chinese Buddhist temples, full of ancient carved wooden structures, colourful statues, and chanting monks.
We left Chengdu for a flight to Beijing and the last stop on our travels.
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