Blogs from Chengdu, Sichuan, China, Asia - page 10

Thursday 29th October 2015 We had booked a flight with Air China from Xian to Chengdu which only cost £70 each and the flight would only take 1hr 20 mins versus a 24 hour train journey. We caught our shuttle bus which we'd located the previous evening and after a 1 hour journey arrived at the airport, checked in and sat down and waited to board the plane. We were heading to Chengdu for 2 reasons, 1 as its a great place to see Pandas and secondly because I have a friend, my old flat mate from university who lives there and I haven't seen in 10 years. The plan was to kill 2 birds with one stone so upon arriving at Chengdu airport we were greeted by Michael, who over the years hadn't changed much ... read more

We went on an excursion to the Museum as part of the Class 10 Main Lesson. First we walked into neat gardens where we saw a golden disc depicting the Sun God Bird that had been excavated from the site. There plan originally was to build big houses and apartments on the site where the museum now stands, but while they were excavating they found elephant ivory tusks. Scientists later found out that this was a special historical site. There were many holes all over the site that was once a rice paddy – the excavated sites had labels showing how old each layer of compacted earth was. Every mark on the tag was 1000 years. The deepest one we saw was 18000 years old. We looked around at pictures of them excavating the elephant tusks ... read more

The drivers and road users here in China are mainly focussed on getting from one place to the next. They seem to have no rules other than common sense - starting with the fact that they drive on the opposite side of the road from us. Even that isn't truelly said as they drive against the traffic here as well. There are also many partly separate motorbike roads. There are many bridges here in Chengdu and the majority are laden with well planted vines. Some of the roads are patched up with metal plates, because they are falling apart. There are three types of cars that we have to be aware of: buses (because they are like bulls), bikes (because they are fast) and 'tuk tuks' (because they are slow). By Anunda ^,^... read more

在一开始的时候 In the beginning................. From Alan Laoshi: Day 1 It was hard to believe that shortly after leaving Cairns we were taking a leisurely stroll though the streets of Singapore. After eating a huge buffet (Western/Malay) breakfast we set out for a quick stroll before we had to head to the airport. We saw old British colonial buildings and the luxurious apartments with a 1.35 million dollar starting price (that's just the ground floor ones)! When we arrived in Chengdu the school bus along with Yashoda were waiting for us - Yashoda and 5 students had arrived one week earlier. We were taken by bus to the Chengdu Waldorf School where our hosts families were patiently waiting to meet us. We had our first night with our homestay families where we all had varied experiences, from ... read more

So here I am on the road again, this time in transit at Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province in China, en route to a fortnight’s travels in Tibet. While it was a transit stop, there were some interesting sights to take in, so a group of us that were to do the Tibet trip had arranged to meet up here a couple of days earlier to get to know each other and start to get acclimatised to the high altitudes we would encounter in Tibet. Highlight of the visit was no doubt the half day visit to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, just to the north of the huge city with a population of a mere 16 million. This ecological conservation base occupies an area of around 100 hectares, which are dedicated to ... read more