We went to Chengdu for summer's last hurrah. Chengdu is a city of 21 million people in western China. It is as far away from us as Nauvoo is from our home in the US.
We could have taken the high speed train. But it was a 10 hour ride and a little more expensive than flying. So we opted to fly.
We've made better choices before. On our way there, the plane was delayed more than 2 hours, putting us landing after 11:00pm, which caused us to have to take a taxi instead of the 30 minute ride by high speed train into the city. And somehow we got the slowest taxi driver on the planet (was he really Chinese??). But we got there and tucked ourselves in real late. (That was nothing, however, compared to our trip home where our plane was delayed for 7 hours...causing us to arrive home at 3:05am--not really worth the ¥15 savings--two-ish dollars per ticket.)
Lesson learned: Planes in China are just no match for the efficiency of their high speed trains.
On our Chengdu to-do list we had: ◻the panda reserve, ◻a food tour, ◻the Sichuan opera, ◻Leshan Buddha, ◻Emei mountain, ◻a fabric market, ◻ eat at a hot pot, ◻visit Kuan Zhai alley◻meet up with our Branch member friends, the Nishes, ◻have fun.
☑The Panda Reserve
This was a must-do since Greta has been enamored with pandas since nearly birth. So this was a big bucket list item for her. It didn't disappoint except that her dream is to hold a panda but we couldn't find the program where that is possible. (We think it went away with Covid.)
We also saw red pandas. They are pretty cute little critters.
A note about our travels to the pandas: We left the hotel at 6:00am for a 40 minute subway ride, then caught a high speed train (standing tickets only) to get to the base of the reserves--another 20 minute ride. Then we had to hop a taxi for another 20 minutes to get to the reserve. There we waited in a long line to buy tickets only to get to the ticket office and find they were all sold out. Thankfully the taxi guy had told us about another reserve 50km further up the mountain that had more pandas and fewer tourists. So we grabbed another taxi and headed up the windy, beautiful mountain road. The drive was breathtaking and largely free from other traffic so we had hopes that that taxi driver was right about the crowds. Sadly no. It was hard for me to imagine what the crowds at the other two reserves were like. My goodness.
Such is touring in China... I don't have a picture of us sitting and resting and all of the attention that that garners. But it caused me to have to employ the line: "And now we become the tourist attraction...."
☑Food Tour
Chengdu is the foodie capital of China, so a food tour was a must. Our transportation from place to place was in little motorcycle vehicles--that is always an experience. While the food was very delicious, it wasn't extremely unusual per our experiences here in China. Our favorites were these little pancake things folded like a taco. We had two: one with a spicy beef and one with sugar and sesame. Both were very delicious. We also ate dan dan noodles, won tons and a more traditional Chinese meal (which was quite good, but we were very full at that point, so it didn't taste as good as it might have otherwise.) We adopted for the night the daughter of some Branch members that the girls met at youth conference. That was very fun for all of us. (She even spent the night with the girls--in China you cannot have more than 3 to a room so we always have to get two rooms.)
At one point, Tom asked our tour guide if she had ever been to the US. She had. Interestingly, she had been to Utah. When we asked her where she was and what she did, she told us that she took a large group of students on an exchange and they each stayed in homes in the Salt Lake area and spent the weekend with them doing whatever the family was doing. The family that Susan and a few students stayed with took them to the Days of '47 parade, a rodeo, to Church and to visit their grandma. We had to end that conversation, but I really smiled about that!!
☑Emei mountain
Here is a picture of Emei from a distance, borrowed from Intrepid Travel. Quite beautiful, right?
We never saw Emei mountain from such a vantage point, but it can give you an idea of the terrain that needed to be crossed to reach the top. Again, travel there was extensive. It took a long subway ride, an hour train ride (standing tickets again), then a taxi ride to the tourist center where we bought tickets to go to the top. That consisted of a 51km bus ride. When Tom asked how long it was to the top, the only reply was 51km. He asked several times and the only answer he got was 51km (31 miles). We understood why that was the answer once on the bus. The road was twisty and turny and there was quite a bit of traffic. Tom watched our progress on navigation much of the way up and we always seemed to be encapsulated in the red surge of heavy traffic. It took more than two hours --a fair amount of time was sitting waiting for tow trucks and accidents etc. I do have to say that when we did pick up speed, it was somewhat frightening because the Chinese drive FAST, visibility was very limited and being in such a large vehicle taking hairpin turns way too fast was a bit breath taking.
Once we got to the 'top' we found a place to eat that served us pretty bad food--but that happens in China.... It was foggy and misty and quite chilly, so as we left the restaurant, many vendors put themselves into our faces trying to sell us ponchos, raincoats, warmer clothes etc. We declined even though we were told that it would get colder as we went up.
We started on the path up not knowing what we were in for. It was pretty much a straight climb up on stairs. It was quite demanding because you had to keep your eyes on the stairs. They were crumbling in places and always uneven in depth, lengthy and height. It was pretty tough. After an hour or so and we felt we were at our limit, we saw a sign saying we still had 3km left. Ouch. There were a few places that had 5-10 paces on flat surface, but largely it was stairs. In total it was 6 km (4.2 miles) of leg lifting and eyes glued to the stairs. As we were climbing, people were coming down and they would say "Jia you"--which directly translates means 'add oil'. It means: "Come on!" (yet another evidence that languages don't translate well .) It can be a new line for you all. Whenever you need to give encouragement, you can just say "Add oil"! It got us to the top of Emei, after all!
Along the trail, we saw:
Cute little boys very interested in us. I gave him a US penny--something I do for kids who are interested in us. (We ran into him several times who either gave us something or showed us something he found, like leaves or butterflies.)
Monkeys
Praying monks
People carrying loads (oh my)
People carrying people (oh oh my)
At the top, it was sunny, hot and we were very thankful we didn't buy extra layers.
Emei mountain is a popular destination for Buddhists. It is the place where Buddhism was introduced in China. So just like every other place in China, it was packed with people, and of course has got a Buddhist temple on top.
President Nish joined us for the hike and it was really awesome to have him there.
Tessa calls this "the golden calf":
Although I knew better, I harbored a slight hope to have a bit of a connection with nature--I mean you hike all the way to the top of a mountain, you should be able to have few moments to experience the awe of God-made wonders. This is something that I've been craving for here. However, it seems that China has effectively removed God from the top of mountains. For me, the 'golden calf', all the noisy people and so much concrete, a connection is impossible.
But we did get to experience this beauty. Pushing crowds made it difficult to appreciate as I would have wished, but this was a little gift. The moving clouds were stunning.
After we enjoyed the setting as much as we could, we headed to the cable car to go down. It was more than a 1 hour wait, but then it only took us 6 minutes to get down the distance that took us 2+ hours to climb. Then we hopped on another bus, rode back down the mountain. It still took quite a bit of time, but it was much quicker than up. On the way down, we were all chatting up a storm, especially President Nish. He is very animated and passionate and was telling us all about the animal reserves near their home in South Africa (as well as many other things). Then out of the blue, a lady a few rows up turns around and yells "BE QUIET" (in English). We silently laughed and tried our best to be quiet, but we are together with like-minded people so little and all of us were craving that special connection with a fellow saint, so we still had whispered conversations after that. And a few more laughs as quietly as we could.
We got back to the train station after 9:00pm (for a 1 hour train ride + subway ride and a 10 minute walk back to the hotel). It was a long day. (Something like 28,000 steps.)
◻Leshan Buddha
Leshan Buddha is not far from Emei. It is a Buddha carved out of the mountain. It was on our to-do list after Emei. We had train tickets there and plans to visit after Emei. But as you can tell, it was not to be. (Picture borrowed from Wallpaper Flare)
◻Sichuan Opera
We also had purchased tickets for the Sichaun Opera for the evening that we hiked Emei, but at 2:00 we realized that we were not going to make the 7pm showing. Thankfully Tom was able to cancel our tickets and get half of our money back. Maybe we'll get back to Chengdu at some point.
☑Visit a fabric market
I visited a fabric market in 2004 when I came to China and have been wanting to go to one, but there are none near me (that I can find). Markets are always fascinating to me. This is such a lengthy post that I won't say too much, but I will add some photos for our memory.
These people are hand-making Chinese buttons.
Each little shop carries only one type of fabric, or fabric for just a specific purpose (such as bedding). Often the owners are sitting outside (or inside) sewing items that their fabric is intended for. I'm sure their creations are sold on Taobao.
And when they want to relax, they sit down at a table and play Mahjong.
☑Eat at a hot pot
Hot Pots originated in Chengdu. They are on every street in Chengdu. If you aren't familiar with hot pots, it is a table with a pot of boiling broth (often spicy, but doesn't have to be) in the center. You order meat, vegetables, noodles, mushrooms etc. to put in the broth to cook and pull out and eat when it is finished. We quite like hot pots (as long as we order the additions for ourselves--because they do put a lot of very weird things in hot pots).
☑Kuan Zhai alley
This is the old part of town. Now it is a tourist attraction. While this was fun to see, it wasn't out of the ordinary for things we've already seen here in China. It was a tourist trap where you could buy many handmade gifts, eat things on sticks and get your face painted like a Chinese opera singer.
☑Visit our friends
I'm so upset with myself that I did not take pictures of our dinner out together or our time at the Nish's home, but we enjoyed all of our time with them. (You can see President Nish and Becca in previous pictures.) They are a cute family from South Africa. It was just so so refreshing to be with members of our Branch and be able to connect in person. It is also interesting to learn about the experiences of members of the Church from other places.
☑Have fun
This we did. Wherever we go we learn a lot and enjoy our interactions with each other and those we meet.
All in all, our trip was a grand way to spend summer's last hurrah. You can never complain when you get to see a plethora of panda statues in many different forms. Chengdu outdid themselves with their panda statues! Here is just a very small sampling.
Even our 7 hour layover turned out pretty fun! (We had taken games to play with the Nishes on Sunday afternoon; we made good use of them in the airport.)
When I told my Chinese teacher about us playing games and reading in the airport to bide our time, she told me that kind of example means a lot to Chinese people. She said "All they do is sit on their phones so so to see that kind of interaction and use of time is very good for Chinese people to see. " I hope that is true! We hope we can bring a measure of light to these dear people! That is my great desire. This is a great work! Jia you!
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