If there was any province I wish I could have spent more time in, it is most certainly Sichuan. Americans recognize the name (also sometimes
by the older spelling Szechuan) and think of hot, spicy Chinese food and pandas, not necessarily in that order. These are undeniable trademarks of this ancient region, and I think Mike and I were both a little disappointed that we didn't quite find the landmark dining experience we had hoped for. As for the pandas, well that just wasn't our highest priority. If you really want to see pandas, though, the guidebooks tell you where you can get up close and even have yourself photographed hugging one – for a price. The high point of our brief stay was the day trip to Leshan and the 71 meter high Dafo, the giant Buddha. If time had permitted though, a hike up the holy mountain Emei Shan would have made my list, as well as another night in Chengdu to attend a performance of Sichuan opera. Tues, July 28
Mike
Got up by 5:45 and ready to check out by 6:35. Everything was dark and we were locked in the hotel. We made a little noise, and someone came out to unlock us. It was drizzling, and we walked to the South Gate to catch a taxi (I had ascertained that the 3 - 8 minibus went to the place from which the airport bus left, but we were not adventuresome). The first two taxis were unwilling to run on the meter, wanting 20 Y each. Finally, a third agreed to run it on the meter, for a total of 10 Y. We got to the place from which the airport bus leaves, and discovered that the bus we needed left not at 7 AM, but at 7:20 AM. We also discovered that the fare was 15 Y apiece. No street food here - this was part of the new city. The bus left on time, and we got on the airplane to Chengdu uneventfully.
We had bulkhead seats 1B and 1E (both middles). Curtis, who had 1B, took 1A (window) and no one challenged him. As the plane was filling, a younger woman came up and asked to change places with the guy in 1D so she could speak English with me. It turned out that she was a 28 year old anesthesiologist, in her second year of residency. She was at Chengdu West Hospital, the largest hospital in the world, she said, with 4000 beds. The brunt of the earthquake injuries had been transported there in 2008. She told me that anesthesia was "ma", the same word as Chinese peppercorns.
The anesthesiologist informed me that it is currently mushroom season in Yunnan: time to savor all sorts of fresh, exotic (and expensive) mushrooms. We just hadn't gotten into that.
The plane landed, and we took the 303 bus to (sort of) downtown Chengdu. We were approx 1 km from the hotel, but no one knew where it was, because we hadn't written the name of the hotel or the name of the street in Chinese characters. We walked a block to a 5-star hotel, where the staff kindly wrote out the name of our hotel in Chinese characters, and got us a cab. We arrived at the Shudu Mansion Hotel (on Shu Wa Bei San Jie) at about 11:30 AM and checked in.
We headed out on the street for the first food of the day, and what great food. The first and the best was a rice (??) burrito around a potato filling with ma and la flavoring (2 Y). Then a rice ball, with fillings, rolled up and squeezed together, with a hot sauce (4 Y). And then: some kebabs, and finally something to drink. All told 18 Y.
We walked down the street and found a store selling maps of Chengdu, complete with the bus info. We were told that the bus to the Chadianzi Bus Station was Number 4. I wanted to go to Dujiangyan to see a city that was in the middle of the 5/12/08 7.8 magnitude tremor known as the Wenchuan earthquake (汶川大地震; Wènchuān dà dìzhèn). So, an hour later, we found ourselves in
a dirty run-of-the-mill Chinese city of 500,000 people, with no visible earthquake damage (although we were told that certain temples - damaged and unrepaired - could not be visited).We were convinced to take a bus to Qingcheng Mountain (青城山), one of the ancient cradles of Daoism. A cable car led up to a large number of trails connecting monasteries and temples on the top of the mountain. We didn't have time for much walking, so we did just a little, and took all the buses back to Chengdu.
Curtis felt our wanderings were a huge waste of time. I guess not every exploration hits pay dirt.
We got back to the Chadianzi Bus Station at 7:00 PM and back to the hotel (to freshen up) after 7:30. We went out for dinner to Longchaoshou, a famous cafeteria, not far from the hotel. We found it fairly easily, but it LOUD, bright, with lots of smoke, and no easy way to figure out what to order or how to order it.
We were right downtown, in the middle of franchise city (yes, McDonalds), so we started walking. A clerk at the Haiyatt Hotel (http://www.hiyattchendu.com/ for you SpellCheck fans) recommended some restaurants an easy taxi ride away. They finally told us to go to Yu Shuang St where there are plenty of restaurants. That destination was maybe 1.5 km away, so we started walking. On our walk, we passed a couple of hotpot restaurants, sort of like the Korean cook-your-food-in-front-of-you places, but neither of us was turned on by them.
Finally, we got to Yu Shuang St. The first restaurant looked fairly promising. We ordered a ma la beef dish, a fish with garlic dish, and two beers. We had to wait for the rice (which is apparently always ordered separately). The ma la dish was HOT, and contained FRESH peppercorns on the twig, along with the dried ones. We left about 60% on the dish, after eating everything else that was edible. The fish with
garlic turned out to be eel with cucumber and garlic (interesting in that the texture of eel and the texture of cucumber are fairly similar). Neither of us was really excited about eel, so we polished off only about 60% of the eel. Still and all, it was a wonderful meal.We took a bus back toward the hotel. Curtis guessed and, miraculously enough, we got off at Shu Wa Street, only 4 blocks from the hotel. We walked down the street, coming upon an internet cafe. I used the first 40 minutes of my hour arranging our flight to Xi'an, a hotel in Xi'an, and answering some business e-mail; my Jul 27 blog transmission (in progress) got lost.
We get up at 5:45 tomorrow to catch a 9:55 plane to Xi'an. We are staying at Botong Hotel in the old city of Xi'an.
Curtis
We made it into Chengdu this AM. The flight was good. We spent most of the day riding around in buses trying to get a grasp on this huge metropolis. We took an afternoon trip to Dujiangyan (about 60 km away). Mike wanted to see if there was any visible damage from last year's 8.0 earthquake, but we couldn't find any real signs. So we took another bus to a nearby Taoist holy mountain, but got there too late to take the cable car up. So we just walked around a little and took the series of buses back to Chengdu.
All in all, today seemed a bit scattered and unproductive from my viewpoint. Mike is always keen on learning the functionality of the local bus systems, but I just want to see interesting sights. Anyhow, I would be totally lost without his expertise and unique skills at public transportation navigation, or at the minimum, I would be paying a whole lot more.
This city is rather grungy like Kunming, but much bigger. The map in the book is misleading because of the scale. There is not much around of old Chengdu. The downtown area is modern and there is a huge city mall area with Starbucks, McDonalds, KFC, etc. When we got back in town we went looking for one of the recommended restaurants cafeteria style in the mall area, but it was extremely noisy and rather too hot for comfort, so we decided to explore a bit and found a much more authentic restaurant area outside the central area.
We ate dinner at a local place that had no English menu and ordered a ma-la beef dish that was pretty
good, though really overloaded with red chilies. But the numbing peppercorns (ma) were especially interesting: they were fresh and still on the stem. They look a lot like the green peppercorns we get at Zab-e-lee, but are of the numbing sort. The other dish we ordered was interesting, but not quite what we expected. Mike thought we were getting fish with ginger. It was eel and very slimy, with not much ginger, but with cooked cucumber that matched the sliminess of the eel. What is surprising here is that most of the local places specialize in hot pot dishes, which is NOT what I am interested in. Anyhow, dinner certainly was unique and mostly good.Tomorrow: to Leshan and the giant Buddha. This I am really looking forward to.
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