Chengdu

We decided to fly from Shanghai to Chengdu to save time. Also, Erin had found a web site which listed particularly cheap airline prices, so we felt that it was not only convenient but reasonable. After our previous train trip, flying sounded like a great idea.

Barbara Grubb, a PhD candidate from the University of Washington, is doing her field work in China and she is currently calling Chengdu her home. I'm not sure that we'd have gone to Chengdu otherwise, but both Erin and I are so glad that we made it. First, Barb was a tremendous host!! She let us stay in her apartment, showed us around, translated for us, and introduced us to incredible Sizuan food. She even helped us get a new SIM card for our phone, which turned out to be far more difficult than what it should have been. Staying with her was a welcome respite from the difficulty that China had been previously.

(Erin's Interjection: While we did some of the tourist things that Chengdu has to offer, we spent most of our time just hanging out. Although I love spending all of my time with my husband, it was wonderful to have some girl time. It was also lovely to meet some of the other UW-ian's, particularly Andrea and Eddie, who currently live in Chengdu. When you meet other people as you travel, you typically talk about four things: politics, where you have been, where you are going, and the weather. Hanging out with Seattlites gave us a much needed opportunity to broaden our small talk and fodder for another couple of weeks of conversations between the two of us. The picture below is from a beautiful tea house with some of the best home brew we have had on our trip. )

Actually Chengdu is a growing city (as are lots of Chinese cities). It turns out that Chengdu was highlighted in a Time magazine that we had picked up in a book store about a week prior to getting there. Based on the article, it is more expensive for up and coming multi-national corporations to open shop in Beijing or Shanghai, so they find out-of-the-way cities like Chengdu to base their Chinese headquarters. I'm not sure if this is a proper measurement of growth, but there are 6 Starbucks in the city.

We also went to see the Panda Zoo, where they have Giant Pandas (the big black and white ones similar to what you think about when you think "panda"), as well as Red Pandas which are much smaller. We even got to hold the Red Pandas and feed them. The Giant Pandas were sleeping as you can see from the photos, but we had gotten there a little late for feeding time. [More panda stuff in next post.] {This is not the best picture of Barbara but it is the only one where she is actually looking at the camera!!}


We also went to Leshan to see the Giant Buddha. In Leshan, there is a bend in the river where lots of boats crashed and sunk, so monks decided to carve an enormous Buddha into the side of the mountain which overlooks the inauspicious site to make things right. The information published at the site does not say whether the large Buddha solved the crashing boat issue, but it is still an impressive place to visit. The Buddha is 71 meters tall - that over 210 feet! The whole mountainside is coverd in Buddhist iconography, including carvings and caves. We even got to see some of the grave sites from a few hundred years ago to see some of the social aspects of the ancient monastic order. [More Leshan in the post after the pandas.]