Chengdu.

Here’s some photos from Chengdu the city I went to after Xi’an, it’s Sichuan province in the west of China. I spent a few days in Chengdu which was nice because I could just wander around the city and not just visit touristy areas. Chengdu is a lot different to Dalian, there’s more of a Tibetan and Buddhist influence here, I particularly liked the architecture around the temples even if some of it is a recent mock-up. Sichuan is famous for it’s food which is very spicy, I eat Sichuan food a lot in Dalian but it is nothing compared to what I ate here. The people here are more laid back, there’s a few parks just like Dalian but Chengdu has a tea house culture. The street I stayed on had at least 10, and they’re filled with locals drinking tea and chatting or playing mah-jong. Many of the outdoor tea shops were closed for the winter which was a shame, I imagine Chengdu is more of a summer place. Although Chengdu is not as cold as Dalian there is no central heating in the buildings which means it was always cold inside, my hostel also had an outdoor shower block which was freezing cold. I also got to see my first pandas in China, I went to the Chengdu panda breeding place which was really good and the pandas had nice enclosures even by western standards.

This is a Buddhist Wenshu Temple

Wenshu Temple

Shoes at the Wenshu Temple

Lots of shoes at the Wenshu Temple

This man is outside the temple burning fake money for his ancestors, you can buy the fake money at lots of places, some of the money I’ve seen has Bank of Heaven written on it and some has Hell money written on it but apparently both are good.

Bridge

The streets can get very crowded, the red, white and yellow rabbits are for Chinese new year, 2011 is the year of the Rabbit, which to me doesn’t sound quite as cool as the year of the tiger.

Every night there are fountain shows with music at Tianfu square.

This was my first panda in China, she’s apparently quite famous as she has had many cubs and sits at the top of the family tree at the breeding base… or so our driver told me.

Baby pandas

You have no idea how happy I was when this panda climbed on to his rocking horse and started rocking, the highlight of my trip… 2011 is off to a good start!

Xi’an

Hi, I’ve been doing a bit more travelling recently, I’ve crossed Chengdu and Xi’an off my list. Xi’an was a really nice city, many people I had spoken to were not impressed with it and said it was quite dirty but I quite liked it. The hostel I was staying in was a Tibetan style one which means it was open plan and had a lot of table cloths everywhere. I’m sure the open plan areas are nicer in the summer because showering in outdoor shower blocks was cold. I also went to see the terracotta warriors which was impressive.

This is the Bell tower which sits in the centre of town

This is the muslin district which is a few streets that have restaurants, street food, stalls and lots of people.

This is one of the pits at the terracotta warriors site, they’re pretty amazing, they’re all two metres tall and no two are the same.

This one of five that you can get close to, there's four different kinds of warrior, archers, horsemen, officers and generals, this is an archer.

Handsome bloke eh?

Me with the tour guide, who was really good.