Adventures in Asia: Chengdu, Sichuan Pandamonium

Chengdu, Sichuan Pandamonium 

Olivia came dressed as a panda

Our next few days were to be spent in Chengdu. Chengdu is a massive city in the Sichuan province of China. Sichuan is located towards the east of the country in the bottom left corner near to Tibet. Our first day was just us arriving, we had a little walk along the river towards our accommodation. The city was much less busy than Hong Kong was but there was still definitely a buzz to the place. Along the banks of the Funan river it is possible to see many white crane like birds.

Wenshu Temple Gate

Our next day was incredibly exciting, we did the terrible thing of getting up really early where we got on the metro and travelled across the city to a place called Panda avenue. From here we got onto a shuttle bus which took us all the way to the Panda Research facility.

Red Panda's 

In this facility are the magnificent Giant Panda, which I felt I could really relate to. They like to eat and sleep and not much else, mind you there were a few lounging in the trees which seemed like a little too much effort. The Pandas themselves are considered an endangered species and are classed as vulnerable on the list. These pandas are great to watch and are actually described as big bear cat which oddly is a rather apt description as they walk a little bit like cats.

Giant Panda Bum

The facility is also home to some very adorable Red Pandas, these are nothing like giant pandas and technically aren’t really related to them. In appearance they look less like giant black and white bears but more like an odd mix between a lemur, a racoon, a fox and a cat. They have very sweet faces and we got to see them around breakfast time. It was rather sad to find out later on that the Red Panda is even more likely to go extinct than normal pandas are, and they are struggling as well.

Some Interesting translations, the third on the left is of note...

We finished off our first day with a trip to a Buddhist monastery called Wenshu Temple where there were many grand buildings and large Buddha’s which was very interesting both architecturally and religiously. Just when we were leaving the monks there were receiving their food. It did feel a bit as if our entire day was dictated by other people’s food.

Sculpture at Wenshu Temple

We decided that we would try a traditional Sichuan hot pot, little did we know that the rest of the evening would be seeped in confusion. We arrived at the restaurant not really knowing what to expect, only that this food had been recommended to us. There was great confusion as my Chinese is limited to numbers, hello and goodbye and the waiter spoke no English. This confusion was only added to when after we had ordered a hotpot, some mushrooms and rice, his translation app asked if we had Litigious Edodas. Eventually Olivia realised that this was about the amount of food we had and she assured him we would ask if we needed more. It turns out that in China a hot pot is not a stew, but a broth that raw ingredients are then cooked in. So we ordered some more food and had various waiters checking up on the strange English people who didn’t understand what was going on. In the end we ended up having a rather delicious soup like stew with mushrooms, pork and beef. We decided that we didn’t want to venture towards the duck’s blood, Chicken Gizzards, Brains and Rabbit Kidneys… but now we know!

Sichuan Hot Pot

Our final day in Chengdu was a rather hot and sweaty affair, we went towards the Tibetan quarter and had a look around the shops. The shops here comprised of various mountaineering shops, for those wanting to go to Tibet, as well as an eclectic mix of Buddha’s and monks. We then walked on towards the people’s park and were met with fascinating displays of groups of dancers and men writing Chinese characters on the floor with wet sponges.

Red Pandas

For our final evening we went to visit the Sichuan Opera. Truth be told the Sichuan Opera that we say was not so much an opera with a story as a showcase of traditional components of the opera. These included men in masks breathing fire, impressive feats of juggling (there was a woman juggling a coffee table with her feet), Hand Shadow puppets, puppets and rapid face changing masked men. I was also taught what I feel is my new favourite insult. Due to a slightly strange translation (of what was a rather romantic sounding song) we received the annotation to the opera of ‘you plum blossomed cockplot.’ All in all, despite the confusion as to the story line (apart from a man running off to join the Chengdu Opera) it was a very enjoyable evening.

Tomorrow we'll be sharing with you our time in Xi'an as we travel further north towards the capital of Beijing

In the meantime

• See our current pictures on Instagram here.
• Or look at some other posts from our time in Asia here.
• Want to see what we did in Europe try here
• Or check out my published article for Chasing the Donkey here, who knows maybe you'll feel inspired to travel the Beautiful Balkans
• Have a look at where we are going next here