When in China:: Part 1

Chengdu 成都

October 1st could not come soon enough!  The homework load for the week had been tough and we were so excited to get out of the city. Since we all had been so busy during the week, none of us had packed and with an hour before we needed to leave for the subway we quickly packed, got breakfast baozi 包子 (steam buns filled with yummies), and loaded more minutes on our cell phones. 

The anticipation (and weight of our bags) is killing us!
Emily, Me, Lauren and Lucy

On our way to the subway station we stopped at an ATM and I realized I had already forgotten the most important thing, my passport! A quick run back across campus and I was ready to go. We rode the subway across the city to the Meglev station. The Meglev is a high speed train that makes a 45min subway ride to the airport into a 15min Meglev ride. 

The Meglev

Very excited to begin our vacation!

Likewise.

While waiting at our gate we noticed a fat (obese) little tyrant of a 3 year old boy running around the gate causing mischief and being followed by his grandmother who never stopped stuffing his face with food. His mouth was literally never empty, little did we know this "tweedle dee" would become a trend on our trip. He did keep us entertained and laughing until we needed to board our plane. After a smooth 3 hour plane ride we arrived in Chengdu. Our hostel, The Loft, was fantastic. It was an old warehouse redone into a hostel with a contemporary vibe. The staff was so friendly and they had a pool table, a movie room, a bar, and a full menu. We dropped our bags in our 4 bunk private room and headed our for dinner. We weren't sure what to expect since we were in Sichuan province which is known all over the world for its spicy food. We lucked out, dinner wasn't spicy, in fact it has no spice whatsoever. After dinner we were hoping to check out the movie room, but sadly it was taken so instead we got a beer and sat on the sun porch (moon porch at this hour) listening to Norah Jones. It was a perfect way to unwind from our first day of traveling. 

Our awesome first hostel set the expectations high.

The next morning we woke up early in anticipation of our excursion that morning. We had a fabulous breakfast cooked by the hostel; eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes, muesli with fruit and yogurt. It was the first real breakfast I have had since arriving in China and it was fantastic. After breakfast we headed to the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center. It was easily the one thing we were all looking forward to the most. They are the laziest creatures I think I have every spent an extended period of time watching and we were supposedly there during their active hours. Unlike the zoos in the states, the Panda exhibits have low walls and the exhibit comes very close to the pedestrian paths. It felt as if we could reach out and touch them, which we all had the intention to do. 

Lazy Panda 熊猫

The gang loving the Pandas.

Red Panda (looks more like a raccoon to me)

This guy was the laziest eater I have ever seen...
And he kept eating the entire 3 hours we were at the center.

 After touring the entire center we decided to embark on a once in a lifetime experience. We were going to hold a Panda. As you can see we were pretty thrilled that we had the option to pay 1000 RMB to hold a Panda. Everyone asks us why we paid so much (which I didn't think was a lot considering) just to hold a Panda, we decided to think of it as a donation to Panda research. Holding ChiChi, a "young" panda cub, was by far one of the most memorable moments in my life. The staff fed ChiChi bamboo shoots dipped in honey to keep him from eating me while he sat in my lap.  He looks very large in the picture, but he really didn't seem that big on my lap. They have very thick fur that makes them look larger than they feel. ChiChi was so adorable 很可爱!!

Sheer excitement

ChiChi is sitting in my lap right now!!!!

After spending the morning at the center, we went for lunch at a Hot Pot restaurant. Hot Pot is a large boiling pot of broth in the middle of the table and they bring you raw veggies and meats to cook in it as you wish. This is the Sichuan tradition and this is where the Sichuan spicy reputation comes from. It was spicy, but it was good. Not the place to go if you are starving though, as it takes time to cook everything and they don't give you very big portions. We returned to the Hostel for a relaxing afternoon in the movie room watching the new Alice in Wonderland with the fabulous Johnny Depp (hence the tweedle dee and tweedle dum that we now call every chubby little boy) before going out on the town to the Sichuan Opera.

Sichuan Opera

Sunday we decided to go on another excursion, with an only Chinese speaking tour guide, and an entirely Chinese tour group. It was an experience (which we tend to have lots of on this trip), which is why we came to this country in the first place. We went to Mount Qingcheng 青城山 and climbed to the top. Mount Qingcheng is a Taoist temple mountain covered in pagoda temples and tourists. I think when we reached the top of the mountain we had climbed 800,000 stairs and seriously worked our gluteus maximus muscles, only to turn around and hike back down.

Emily and I about 1/16 of the way up the mountain

Stairs are the only option and they never end.

Emily and I about 1/2 way up the mountain with Chinese "friends".
We became quite the celebrities on this trip.

One thing we began to notice was that outside of Shanghai, American tourists are not a frequent sight. We got very used to being called "waiguoren 外国人" which literally means foreigners by all the young kids that passed us. We got stared at as if we had "look here" painted on our faces. And we had people just take our pictures like paparazzi to a celebrity. We have never had so many strangers ask us to take pictures with them or with their children or just of us. 

Some of the tour group children including another tweedle dee.
Our group also had tweedle dum twins on it.

After Mount Qingcheng we had one more stop to make before heading back for the city, or so we thought... We thought we were headed for Dujiangyan Irrigation System (it is just a boring dirty river), but instead we turned down an unmarked gravel road towards a warehouse with 10+ tour buses in front of it. What had we gotten ourselves into?? Our entire tour group was shuffled into a small room where a man did a demonstration about knives as if we were part of a real life infomercial/Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It was the strangest thing. Then we loaded back on the bus and headed for the river. At this point in the tour we had passed the test and were initiated into the group. The families started talking to us and taking pictures of us with their children. Three of the chubbiest little boys were in our group, tweedle dee and the tweedle dum twins. At the river we were required to cross a foot bridge that could've been built in the Qing Dynasty it was so rickety. And of course since we are in China there were at least 200 people on it at any one time. Needless to say I didn't enjoy it.

Rickety bridge with 200+ people on it. Scary.

We got home late and decided to go for a quick dinner and then enjoy some desert with a bottle of wine and some girl gossip. We found a cute little cafe with couches and candle lit tables in the back. We ordered a cheap bottle of Chinese wine and some tiramisu and some gossip. The perfect evening to a group of four exhausted girls.

Wine, tiramisu, and gossip

 For our last day in Chengdu we went to Wenshu Monastery, a Buddhist monastery in the middle of the city. Once inside the walls you would never know you were in the center of a city of 9 million people, it was so quiet and calm. We visited the library and all the different temples. After a relaxing walk through the monastery and enjoying the intricate designs on all the pagodas, we went for some tea and the monastery tea house 茶馆. This tea house is known in Chengdu for hosting all the locals and so we decided to fully immerse ourselves. The tea was good and the service was better. We would barely set down our glasses after a single sip of tea and the little old man would be back by overflowing your cup with more hot water. 

The gang at Wenshu

Wenshu Library filled with studying monks

The designs on the library

My tea cup at the tea house 

 After the monastery we headed back to the hostel to hang out with a snack on the patio and then head for dinner at Namaste, an Indian restaurant in downtown Chengdu. We made our way back to the hostel around 8:30 and caught a taxi at 8:45 to head to the train station for our "11pm" train to Xi'an 西安。Our lovely Lucy read the military time on the tickets wrong and the train that we thought was leaving at 11:20 was really leaving at 9:20. We hoped on the train at about 9:15 about to embark on quite an "experience"...