Traveling the World

Chengdu – Part 1

by Sean on Oct.18, 2009, under China

The train to Chengdu was terrible. We were originally planning to go straight to Shanghai from Guilin, but the woman at the station said Guilin to Chengdu was only 9 hours. We had hard seats, and since Lily and I spent 15 hours on the hard seats from Wuhan to Guilin, we figured 9 wouldn’t be so bad. That is, until we realized we were terribly, terribly wrong. Read about it here.

We took a van from the train station to the Dragon Town Hostel that blatantly overcharged us 50rmb when it should have been about 15rmb, so the hostel reimbursed us because they were supposed to pick us up and didn’t. We decided on privacy over price and got 2 rooms, each with 2 beds. The front desk service was great, the staff spoke good English and always gave good recommendations for activities and restaurants. On the down side, the internet and computers were very slow and the bathrooms smelled, but the beds were comfortable.

People's Park

As soon as we dropped the bags, we went on a mission to find the People’s Park on foot. I’d seen many programs about China on Discovery Channel, and almost each one showed this park, so it was a must see for me. The most important aspect of this mission was to have my ears cleaned! En route to the ear cleaning, Melba began to feel weak, so we changed our mission to eat until we had to roll out of the restaurant. A man who works there and spoke amazing English pointed us in the direction of an expensive restaurant, and he wasn’t joking about this being the best food in Sichuan.

Tai Chi

After the first mission was complete, I was free to fulfill my several year long dream of having my ears cleaned here. For a tiny 20rmb note, ($2.80) I experienced the cold and painful, yet exotic and thrilling feeling of bliss that was a dream seen through. As I began to hear things more clearly by the minute, I went in search of the man to thank him for his recommendation, and asked about any other activities he was aware of. He told us about a minority performance in the north of the city being done by the Yi and Chang minorities, and for a price of only 80rmb, we said hell yes! We still had some time before we left for the performance, so we took pictures and joined the elderly people doing Tai Chi.

The next morning we got up super early and went out to the Panda research base 10km from the hostel. It cost 58rmb to get in. To play with the small black and white Pandas cost 1000rmb, and the small red raccoon like pandas cost 100rmb. Alfred and Richard paid the 1000rmb for me because I couldn’t afford it and they wanted me to do it with them. I was really appreciative, even if I didn’t express it in words.


Popularity: 1% [?]

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google Bookmarks
  • LinkedIn
  • Ping.fm
  • Slashdot
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati

You may be interested in the following related posts:

:, , , , ,

2 Comments for this entry

Leave a Reply