Advertisement
Published: April 11th 2015
Edit Blog Post
April 11 - A day in Chengdu
We are all pretty tired so a rest day was welcomed. We had breakfast, lounged around and enjoyed relaxing until around 11am. Then we headed out. Our first stop was the ATM or as it is called here, the self serve bank. At the end of our street there is a beautiful old pagoda and a park. We crossed the river and went into the park. It was bustling with activity. There were tables of older people playing majong and drinking tea, toddlers with bubble blowers and young people strolling hand in hand. One woman was clearly assisting a man to develop his strength and endurance as she repeatedly kicked him in the leg over and over again. It was very strange. There was a lady who had a chocolate wheel on her bench and on the wheel were about 8 different pictures. You spun the wheel and wherever it landed, that was the toffee you could get. She had a pot of hot toffee and a spoon and made all of these elaborate designs. They were incredible. Take a look at the photo.
We left the park and caught
a taxi to the main shopping area that Jay, our local guide, had told us about. It was the expensive end of town so not much purchasing happened there, apart from souvenirs. We did find a more reasonable area where I was able to get Sarah a suit that she wanted for her dog showing. We stopped at a tiny little street cafe for lunch. We managed to order rice noodle soup with vegetables with a bit of help from a helpful customer. It was crazy because we all ordered the same meal and every meal looked completely different. It didn't matter as they were all delicious and only cost 12 Yuan for a bowl (about $3).
After a successful lunch, we decided to treat ourselves to some Hagen Daz ice cream. The ice cream cost more than all the noodle dishes put together. There was a high tea section at the back that looked very yummy. It was a nice treat. There were police absolutely everywhere in this shopping district and so many people! I guess the city does have 13 million people. The shops were all well staffed and had someone out the front trying
to get poeple inside. We bought a few souvenirs, Sharon put her bag into someone spit (never a shortage of that) and then touched it! Gross, gross and double gross. A bit more shopping and then we headed back to the hotel for a rest and to update the blog before dinner. We haven't had our 10000 steps on Noelene's fitbit yet so we will be going out again later for dinner. Probably to the People's Park where we can watch the locals and take it all in. The People's park is where the locals dance at night. Hundred's of people dance. One person volunteers to lead them and everyone dances along. It should be fun. We have the address in mandarin so we should get there ok.!
Now time for a rice wine. Wish us luck! The bottle (see picture) was $1.25 so we may tear the lining of our throats on the way down.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.099s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0434s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb