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The Group of Seven
The group enjoying a cup of tea. A couple of months ago several people started to think about what we should do during the week long Spring Break. Shannon, a teaching friend, did some Internet research and discovered a company that offered tours in the Cheng Du area (where the earthquake was last year). The company would customize the tour to meet the needs of your group. The biggest feature was a visit to the Panda Base where you get to see many of the pandas in captivity. They organized a bunch of other events for us and we found a group of seven adventurers who wanted “go to see the pandas”.
Getting to the airport is always a challenge. There are no friends or family with cars just dying to take you. Dianne discovered the school van would take us for a nominal fee which sure beat trying to fit 7 travellers and their luggage into two cabs. Especially at 5:30 on a Sunday morning when there are no cabs at the school’s cab stand. Everyone made it out to the gate for the departure time, including the school driver who has been known to sleep in. Off we went! It was good to be all
The Tour Team
Our guide, Jane, and our driver, Mr. Hao.
together, a great bonding experience to start the trip!
The flight was uneventful except for the lunch. The coffee they serve is unusual, it includes milk and sugar, I think…. It is not black but is kind of sweet…. But not like coffee with cream and sugar in Canada. I find it strangely enjoyable but Dianne goes for the juice or tea. The highlight is the entrée. A foil package containing a hot dog in a bun, with a pickle and mayo. This is not a one-off. We have had it on four flights now on three different airlines. The meals we were served on the other legs of the flights were more traditional and actually quite tasty.
Our tour guide was at the baggage pick-up with an appropriate sign welcoming us to Cheng Du. Jane turned out to be the perfect guide for our group. She was young, enthusiastic, had a great sense of humour, and her English was great. She got us checked into our hotel and told us the main points of the area so we could have the afternoon to explore on our own. The first stop? Starbucks followed by McDonalds for some of
Dalian Airport
Getting ready to leave Dalian. Note how flat the countryside is and how close the housing is the others. Dianne and I wandered the streets taking in the sights. OK. We stopped for fries and a milk shake at a McDonalds when no one could see us. Turns out Cheng Du is a small city of 10 million people, slightly larger than Dalian’s 6 million.
Monday morning Jane and Mr. Hao, our bus driver, took us to the Sanxingdui Ruins museum. This area dates back to 3,000 BC but was only discovered by accident in 1929. It is only in the last 20-25 years that the area has been studied in detail and new treasures are found on a regular basis. We were all amazed at one particular statue which is remarkably similar to many First Nations carvings on the West Coast of Canada. We were very happy to find a lot of English on the signs explaining some of the background of the exhibits. Jane also provided a lot of additional information. If you want more detail on the site, you can click
SanxingDui Museum for some additional great pictures or Google “Sanxingdui Ruins” to check it out for yourself.
The museum is only 40 kilometres from Cheng Du but it is another world. We
Street Scene
Lots of pedestrian-only walkways left at the end of the morning “rush hour” where 6 and 8 lane roads are full of cars and ended up on dirt roads where the bus was down to 5 kmh to preserve its axles. It is only now coming into its own as a destination to rival the more famous Panda Base.
When we got back to town we were treated to a typical Chinese feast. More dishes than you can imagine and even identify. All our lunches were chosen by Jane who had us figured out by this time. In Chinese, if you want to say “he is”, you say “shì”. To say “he is not”, you say “bu shì”. In fact, to negate almost anything, you just say “bu” in front of something. One of the gals on the trip does not like spicy foods so her buzzword became “bu spicy”. Jane made sure there was always something Angi could enjoy. We thought this was terribly clever until we heard one of the Chinese teachers at the school commenting on the weather by saying it was “bu hot”. Apparently we were not that original.
Very close to the restaurant was the Wu Hou
Bikes R Us
Motorcycles and scooters dominate over cars and pedal bikes Temple, a restored temple of the Tang dynasty (around 200 AD). Some of the renovations were done in 1672 AD! Very restful grounds in the middle of a large city. The statues of the generals we saw were built in the 1700 and 1800s. Very interesting to see the different interpretation of their ancient leaders.
Just outside the temple grounds is the famous Jin Li street market. It is supposedly one of the oldest commercial streets in Sichuan province with a “concentration of the beauties of Cheng Du life”. Many stores sell local handcrafts and there are lots of local restaurants and snack food places. And, of course, a Starbucks. And, yes, we stopped for cappuccinos.
We had decided to go to the “opera” on Monday night so we had to have a fast dinner. Across the street from the hotel was a “hot pot” outdoor restaurant so we trooped over for a quick dinner. Beer is pretty easy to order but dinner was another story as the menu is completely in Chinese characters (no pin yin we could look up in our phrase books) and no pictures. With a certain amount of pointing we managed to get
First Night Dinner
Brian takes the restaurant motto literally some side dishes. Kevin knew the symbols for various things so he was in charge of ordering. A huge bowl of something appeared at our table. “What is it?” was a natural question. “I have no idea” he said, “but there’s beef in it”. It was great and we went away satisfied.
Jane and Mr. Hao picked us up after dinner and took us for tea at the opera house. You can’t sit down in these places without being offered massages of one type or another as well as ear candling. I find this sort of thing quite stressful. Telling them “no” is easy, getting them to accept the answer and move on is not as easy. Tea was fun and another learning experience.
Sichuan opera isn’t an opera in the sense we know it. It was more of a variety show with singers, actors, skits and musicians. The highlight for me was the skit where the actor’s masks would change right in front of you but so fast you couldn’t see them change. One performer came down into the audience and shook hands with all of us in the first two rows. While he did this, his
Transportation
Chengdu's version of Victoria's Kabuki Kabs mask changed a couple of times but you couldn’t see it happen. Brilliant. The art form is several hundred years old but in the last 50-60 years they have made many changes. You can see videos on YouTube by looking for "Sichuan Opera". Youtube is blocked in China these days so we just have our memories. The entire performance was in Chinese although there was a display in English of what was being said. The translation was so weird that I stopped reading it and just enjoyed the performance. You really didn’t need the English. The price seemed steep at 200 kuai but then I remembered that was less than $40 Canadian. Given how much I enjoyed it, it was great value.
This was the end of our first two days in Cheng Du. Panda Base tomorrow. But that will be the subject of the next blog! Bye for now….
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