China Trip: Chengdu

Days 8 & 9: Chengdu

Chengdu is the capital of the Sichuan province and has over 11 million inhabitants (China: the land of enormous cities). Our hotel, while not as central as the one in Xi'an, was right in the Tibetan quarter. It was also very close to a cute tourist shopping street - and by "tourist" I don't mean "Western tourist". Georgina and I explored it as soon as we arrived (screw showers) and enjoyed the faux-antique architecture, the artistic lollipop seller, and of course the finger-food vendors. At one place the cook would bounce rolled balls of rice paste off a taunt piece of vellum with mini cymbals attached into a vat of hot oil. The drum would crash merrily, and then for only 1 quai you could have three of the fried balls smothered in molasses. Delicious. Georgina and I also went on a very long exploratory walk into the center of the city, where in Renmin Park we found an amazing tea house. There's a saying that China has the best tea in the world, and Chengdu has the best tea in China. Thus the tea house tradition is a big one there. At our tea house in Renmin Park, I ordered the most wonderful jasmin tea that has ever existed, and paid an exorbiant $3 for it. Along with the tea came a big thermos of boiling water that lasted us through many, many cups. Sitting by the side of the lake and listening to the deafening waves of sound from the surrounding cicadas, we spent a very pleasant afternoon, only driven away eventually by our pressing need to find a toilet. In the evening our group gathered for an equally famous Sichuan tradition: hot pot. Think of it as a sort of (though not exactly) Chinese fondue, but with enough spices to render your entire face numb. I personally had to blend the hot and mild pots we ordered to reach my "Goldilocks" edible level of spice. Yes, I am a wuss, and I hang my head in shame to acknowledge it.

Despite the delicious tea and hot pot, the primary reason for coming to Chengdu was to visit the panda preserve there. We arrived around 8 am, feeding time and apparently the only time they are active all day. We strolled along the paths and admired at least ten from a very close distance. We were, at most, 30 feet away from them. Utterly adorable, and so on nature's chopping block. Sorry, guys, if you can't mate your species gets axed. That's reality for you.

Our last great taste of Sichuan came in the evening of the last day, when most of our group went out to catch a performance of Sichuan opera. The performance we saw featured short snippets of various types of opera, like a medley of styles, but it did, of course, include the most famous of them: face-changing. With a flick of a fan or cape, or perhaps just by turning away from the audience, the actors would change their elaborate masks in a flash. They did it so many times, and so quickly, I just can't imagine how they do it.