Beijing to Chengdu

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I am writing this blog entry a few days late. We are starting our third full day in Chengdu and we absolutely love this town of around 4 million folks. The reason there are no pictures is because we lost our camera 😞 John and Meredith are out right now trying to find a new one. We were really sad about it, but when we realized that if that is the worst thing that happens to us during this trip, then the trip has been a success.

Our trip from Beijing to Chengdu was good. We got to fly out of the brand new Beijing airport terminal. It is the biggest and most unique terminal we have ever seen! It is more like a museum than anything. Our original flight was cancelled, so we had to hang out at the airport for several hours. Then, we hopped on an Air China flight and made the 2 1/2 hour trip to Chengdu (hint: don't eat the plane food if you ever fly Air China!). So, we flew from the northeastern part of China to the southwestern part. One neat factoid about China is that it only has one time zone!!! So, here in Chengdu, our sunlight hours are a little off.

The pace of life in Chengdu is slower than in Beijing. It is a teahouse-centered culture. Teahouses are absolutely everywhere and are a staple in this society. Folks will come to a teahouse in the early morning and stay all day long, smoking cigarettes, playing Mahjongg or cards, reading the newspaper, letting their kids run around. John, the girls and I spent the better part of our first afternoon in Renmin Park's teahouse (The People's Park).

John and Jenna went on a date to a traditional Sichuan Opera. They had so much fun and Jenna wants to go back. They saw beautiful masks, colorful costumes, fire-breathers, drummers, shadow puppets.....and they saw it all from the front row! Jenna felt so special on her daddy-date. Meredith and I made it an early night and watched a movie in bed and had a great time.

The highlight of our trip to Chengdu so far has been our trip to the Panda Research & Breeding Center. Our pandas in ATL came from Chengdu, so the girls thought is was great! It is a beautiful place just outside the city. A gal from our hotel met us there to give us a tour of the place. She even helped us arrange it so the girls could hold a baby giant panda!! It was a 6 month old baby and was about the size of Meredith. This is the picture we will miss the most 😞 The girls were so tickled as they sat with it. Meredith even laid her head on its shoulder and giggled the whole time!!

We met a friend for dinner last night. Since we are so close to Tibet, he took us to a Tibetan restaurant. We had yak milk yogurt, yak milk tea, grilled yak, curried cauliflower and carrots, stir-fried kale and tomatoes, and yak pie. Can you see a trend in the food...yak is the staple meat in the Tibetan culture. The food was wonderful. After dinner our friend took us to Jin Li, a pedestrian street with stall after stall of handmade goods and food. We tried bean powder cotton candy (I wouldn't recommend it!) and bought some jewelry for mere pennies and the girls watched a shadow puppet show on the side of the small street.

It is really rainy today, so we will probably stay close to the hotel in the morning and will go visit some sites this afternoon. Stay tuned!

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Comments

[Lisa Dekle]

sorry you lost your camera
Hi there, I'm sorry you guys lost your camera but other than that it sounds like you are having an amazing time! Tell the girls that all their friends at school miss them. The girls in our class today asked "When is Meredith coming home?" Lisa