We had only one full day planned in Chengdu (plus two half days on arrival/leaving day), as it was meant to be just a short stopover to see the pandas. We HAD TO see the pandas, as it was one of the things we kept going on and on about when trying to get Hanna excited about the trip. But I personally didn't expect Chengdu to have much more to offer - it seemed that it is yet another big city on our itinerary, a necessary stopover on the way to Tibet.
As with many other cities in China I was very wrong. Chengdu has a very young and interesting vibe. We stayed in the Poshpacker Flipflop Hostel close to the luxury shopping center Taikoo Li and busy Chunxi Road - we had a very comfortable, spacious 4-people private room, great choice for our family.
We arrived in Chengdu late afternoon so we rushed straight away to People’s Park, one of the main attractions of Chengdu - a place full life and traditional tea houses (Chengdu is famous for its ever present tea house culture). What we didn’t realize was that those tea houses are rather a day time activity, with all of them closing at 7p.m. - a bit disappointing but luckily for us there was also a children’s playground in the park so the trip was not a waste, even though we had to come back to have our tea the next day.
After catching a ride on a carousel, it was time to get some dinner. Like anywhere in China, Chengdu is full of amazing food, no matter where you go, so in no time we found a place to eat. We opted out of hotpot as we thought that it is better to find something Hanna could eat too.
The next day morning we had planned the main event of the whole trip - the pandas, that is the Panda Research Breading Center.
You can read here about the logistics of that endeavour and things you should know if you decide to go there:
The breeding center is very crowded in the summer as it is the main tourist attraction of the city - you will quickly notice that as everywhere in Chengdu you see panda decorations, souvenirs, plush toys… So as I mentioned in the earlier post, aim for early morning to be able to get in. Unfortunately also, pandas don’t lime the heat that much so many of them were hiding indoors. In the end we didn’t see many of them - luckily we have seen some. If it wasn’t for our daughter, we would have skipped the pandas, but travelling with children you need to make sure there is something exciting for them in that trip - what we personally often try to do is build up excitement around the things we are doing so thst she thinks it is special - the same we did with pandas, even though we found the experience quite underwhelming, we kept on counting the pandas and repeating how amazing it is that we saw the real pandas ans how exciting it will be to tell this to all her friends.
After the pandas we were ready to head out for the People’s Park again - this time with the intention od getting a tea. We ended up going to a pricey touristy one (and for that reason rather empty) - but the surrounding where so beautiful and charming that my internal compass failed and I failed to listen to my husband that this is maybe not the best one to visit.
Even though the tea house was mostly empty, we still managed to bump into Chinese tourists who wanted to cuddle Nina - going to China you have to be prepared for lots of attention towards your kids, especially if they have blue eyes.
After spending some time sipping tea, we walked around the park a bit more, and by chance encountered some people who were selling tickets to a show in another tea house - part of which was the so called 'Bian lian' - mask changing show. In Europe we would have assumed that it is a tourist trap and would never ever go to something somebody invites us off the street, but we were intrigued. Hanna loves all kinds of costumes, singing and dancing, so we decided to go - worst case we would just have some tea and leave early if necessary.
When we entered the tea house it was packed, but the waiters helped us to push through to the good seats - we were the only foreign tourists there. And the show turned out quite good (even though we didn't understand what they were saying). It was a mix of things - a tea pouring ceremony, theatre performance and finally the Bian lian, which was just mesmerising. Hanna loved it, and we enjoyed it too. Bian lian was a true spectacle.
After the show Hanna was exhausted already, so we went for a walk around the park again, but since it was extremely hot and sweaty, we decided to check out the Taikoo Li shopping center - we were interested in the giant Fang Sun Commune bookstore that was there. The shop is massive, with beautiful architecture and lots of people just sitting and reading. While Hanna was sleeping we browsed through some beautiful Chinese children books. Being there made me realise a thing that really should be obvious - not understanding absolutely anything from a language of the second most populous country on Earth and the fastest growing economy, we don't have access to such a vast amount of knowledge and culture. Because even looking at the children books, you can see that they are telling different stories, have different metaphors - and we in the collective West have no aspiration to understand any of this. I left the bookstore with few books and a strong desire to learn basics of Mandarin.
The rest of the shopping center is mainly luxurious brands - nothing particularly interesting for us and not things that we could afford anyway. It is quite stunning for me, mostly because I think there is no other country in the world, where you could build a giant shopping centre with mostly luxurious, very expensive brands, and have enough customers for it to be profitable - even in Zurich where we live it is literally one street which has all the Chanels and Prada's, and it is not that busy. That also makes one realise that China is the future, and the future is already here.
In the evening we tried some amazing street food - Chengdu is famous for that. There is so much of everything that it was hard to pick just few things. And everything was of course delicious.
And so quickly the day went. The next day we already had to leave - we were sad we haven't planned more time in Chengdu, but we are sure it is not our last trip to China, so we will definitely come back here.
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