Arriving to our hostel at 3am really put a strain on our Chengdu plans. Instead of getting up early to see the whole city or go to the panda reserve, we slept in and basically wasted our day. However, it was absolutely necessary. There had already been too many nights where we only got 3 or 4 hours of sleep. When we finally got up, got moving, and got breakfast it was already 11am. Molly and I were trying to get a legit plan down for the rest of our trip, so we could plan to see the pandas. The one thing that we were certain of was that we wanted to go to Jiuzhaigou. While talking about it, an Australian man, Francis, overheard us and chimmed in. This conversation changed the course of the rest of our trip.
He easily convinced us to stay in Sichuan longer to visit part of the Tibetan plateaus. So, we are knocking out Chongqing, Yichang, and Wuhan but adding Songpan, Langmusi, Xiahe, and Xian. Although this allows us to see more of Western China and visit more rural areas, it meant that we had to leave Chengdu the next day; therefore, no panda reserve. This was devastating news since one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Chengdu was to see and hopfully hold a panda. In the end, I think it will be worth it because we are getting to see more of rural China than we thought we would.
The one day we had in Chengdu we spent enjoying the cuisine, visiting a museum, a Daoist Temple, and People's Park. The food was intense to say the least. The first experience: spicey noodles. We told the waitress "just a little spice", but in Sichuan, that is still pretty dang spicy. The noodles we ate literally numbed our mouths. It was the weirdest feeling ever. They have a spice called ma (which literally means numb) that makes your mouth tingle into numbness, which basically enables you to tolerate the spiciness. It works. While the roof of my mouth, my toungue, and my lips had a bizarre tingling or prickly sensation, I could no longer feel the heat of the spicy dish. I had never felt anything like this. Thank goodness Jacob knew about this spice because if he hadn't told me about it, I may have thought that some kind of drug was slipped in my food. I think everyone else enjoyed it or at least didn't mind it, but I didn't really like it at all. I was too worried about the way my mouth felt to enjoy the food...hell, I couldn't really taste anything anyway because my whole mouth was numb.
The second food experience: street food. Although it didn't have the numbing ingredient, it was spicey. I only ate half of it, but the flavor was delicious!
The third and final Chengdu, Sichuan dish: hotpot...of course.
Now, I have had hotpot before, and I actually enjoy the spicy side of it. The flavor is quite nice. This spiciness, however, was on another level. At the beginning of the meal, each patron was given an oil-based sauce in which each person could add his/her own ingredients to. The whole point of it was to cut down the spice to make the food edible. I had not yet experienced this. You can always get sauce on the side, but it has never just automatically come with the hotpot, but it was necessary. We ordered a half and half hotpot...one side was spicey and the other side was not.
Other tables, however, had all spicey that was divided into like 9 different sections. I am guessing either different flavors or different levels of spiciness. Eventually, everyone at our table gave up on the spicey side because after eating it for so long, the flavor was lost to the spice. While I would never be able to eat this food regularly, it was delicious. And I must say that I am proud of myself for eating all of this spiciness because I normally shy away from spice. China's changing me, man.
The museum was free which is always a plus. It was very interesting seeing all of the artifacts that are 1000's of years old and only discoverd within the last 30-40 years. Most everything we saw was excavated from Chengdu and Chongqing.
The Daoist temple was really pretty, but we were hoping for more. However, the area surrounding it was lovely and made for a great walk.
From the temple, we went and enjoyed tea in People's Park.
Parks in China are always interesting(a.k.a. great for people watching). We saw people excercising and sword dancing.
After posting up on some rocks watching the sword routine, we took a quiet stroll around the little lake which was very relaxing.
It was a nice but too short of a visit to Chengdu. There is much more to do in this city, so hopefully in my time in China, I will be able to return to visit the large Budda and hold a panda.
Next stop Jiuzhaigou!
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