Pandas in Chengdu

Chengdu, Sichuan October 29 - 31, 2008

10/29/08 - 10/31/08 65 °F
View RTW Trip - Part II on jhongny's travel map.

After almost a month of brown, dusty, deserty landscape, it's nice to finally see trees and green landscape. Chengdu was a pleasant surprise - cleaner and a lot more modern than the cities we've been seeing (besides Beijing).

Sichuan cuisine is also our favorite of all the different types of Chinese foods, yet another reason we were excited to be there. The food definitely did not disappoint. A stroll around the various food stalls around Wen Shuo Temple proved to be very rewarding for our stomach. The food is spicy, but in a way that one can still taste all the flavors as opposed to just being so hot it obliterates everything else. One of the best is the dumpling in hot chili oil... here's it's more soupy and flavorful than what you get in the US. There's not peanut butter in the sauce either... not sure why restaurants in NY think it's necessary to add it. Unfortunately Ashok was still recovering from Jiayuguan so we had to limit what we ate.

The Giant Pandas are from Sichuan so of course we paid a visit to the Panda Research Center. We got there early to see them eat breakfast. Apparently after that they pretty much just go back to sleep. Not a bad life. I know they can get mean but they just look so innocent & cuddly!

The cutest things, though, were the baby Pandas. All the newborns are put into the nursery since they're still developing their senses and cannot do much, and when the workers plop them down into the playpen they just lay there and wiggle around looking just like the soft, plush stuffed animals you can buy (sorry photos were not allowed inside).

The other thing to do is to have tea in a tea house and people watch. It was drizzling the day we went to the park so there weren't too may people to watch. However, we did see this interesting activity in the park:

This guy is getting his ears cleaned by one of the professional ear cleaners that walk around the park, while having tea and snacks, for less than $1.50! We were tempted, but didn't end up trying it.