Chengdu Oct 23 - 26

Chengdu = PANDAS

And tea. And big Buddhas.

We took an early morning bullet train to Chengdu on the 23rd of October and easily found our hostel. It was pretty cloudy after we checked in so we went to the Wenshu Monastry for their tea house and had some of their snacks too. They only serve vegetarian options so we sampled multiple snacks like their spicy noodles, tofu pork, and pears in a rose sauce while drinking tea in the tea garden.

Off to see the pandas on the 24th! We got to the research base at 7:30am and got to enter just 15 minutes later even though it wasn't supposed to open until 8am. We followed the masses to the yearling panda area but saw no pandas. We patiently waited (much longer than I would have waited if it was just me) and finally they tumbled out to eat bamboo right in front of us!! It was adorable to see them roll around and slowly eat so much bamboo. They would hold a stock in their paws then rip off the leaves with their mouths but keep the leaves in a corner of their mouths. Then they would take that bunch of leaves in their paw and munch on it until it was gone and they had to repeat the process. Afterwards, we continued to explore inside the base and saw pandas that were only two weeks old up to 20 years old. We even saw playful red pandas too!

When we got back to Chengdu it was raining a lot so we went back to the Wenshu Monastry for their lunch buffet and afterwards got a coffee next door - I got a yummy red velvet latte. Then we hit up the classic must-sees of Chengdu such as Tianfu Square and Peoples Park but because of the rain we continued to Kuanzhai Alleys and found a very old tea house to play cards in. It was a very cold and rainy day. On the 25th we got up early to see the Giant Buddha! We took a bus for 2 hours outside of the city to the park where the Buddha is located. We spent the day exploring the park and seeing other temples inside the park.

Back in Chengdu for dinner, we ate at a local hotpot restaurant. The hotpot is in a large pot with a broth being heated on gas in the middle of your table. Then you go into a separate room and select different meats and veggies on sticks that you cook in your hotpot. The meal is paid by the weight of your sticks at the end of the meal. It was a fun experience among locals and a perfect way to end our visit to Chengdu.