Chengdu

After another 16 hour train ride, we arrived in another massive city. Chengdu is the fourth largest city in China with about eight million people. It's the capital of the Sichuan province, which is very well known for it's hot and spicy food. They do love their hot chili peppers here. Chengdu is considerably more laid back than the other cities we had visited to the North. People are more relaxed with their free time. It's less about business and more about fun. The traffic isn't as aggressive either. You can actually cross the street without the feeling that someone is gunning for you. And as we continue to move further south, the climate is a little warmer still (60s to 70) and continued wetter. Chengdu is somewhat close to the Tibetan plateau and gets alot of the cloud cover and showers that come out of the mountains.

Chengdu is also the focus of the conservation effort to save the giant pandas. It features a world class center, much like a nice zoo, where you can view the pandas and also red pandas. We took a guided trip to the center and saw about 15 of these giant pandas and also about ten of the much smaller and raccoon-like red pandas (the Knoxville zoo actually has a couple). Giant pandas are down to about 1500 in number world-wide and the center in Chengdu has about 80 in captivity, where they successfully breed pandas and they also live about ten years longer than they do in the wild.





We also had a hot pot dinner in Chengdu, much like the one in Zhongwei, but with a much spicier heat option in the center boiling bowl. I was afraid to even put my chopsticks in the center ring in fear that they might burst into flame from all of the chilis floating inside. Hot pot can include just about anything meaty or any vegetables that you can imagine. Think of it as a giant boiling soup and you just pick out the items that you want to eat.



Another activity in Chengdu took us to an ancient village that has been spruced up. The Chinese have also discovered the tourist trap and have dressed up this village much like you would expect from a Gatlinburg (but more tastefully done). There was lots of shopping and snacks along the streets.

We also finished our visit to Chengdu off with a stop at a Chinese disco on the final night. Disco isn't much different than a noisy smoky bar for the younger crowd. I think I was the oldest person there. It was very, very noisy and boisterous with lots of Chinese pop music. I was mercifully thankful that we got kicked out after 90 minutes because we weren't spending enough money to satisify the local establishment. The Chinese have just recently been getting their freedoms since about 1990 and have jumped into the new modern culture headfirst.


a little open air dentistry