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December 1, 2002, Xichang, China
November 19 Wow, It was good coming back to Chengdu. We do find that when we return to a city: it's a different feel - more familiar, so more like "returning home". As I had mentioned earlier, I was really looking forward to visiting my panda friends. My parents had promised me a second visit to the research center. Our stay in Chengdu was at a different hotel, "Holly's Hostel" and I was glad for it as there was a new friend I got to |
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meet and play with. Her name is Yanchee and she is only 1 year older - so you can imagine that I had a lot of fun there. Actually, most of the week in Chengdu was spent on the regular errands my parents drag me on, like visiting Fuji processing labs and Canon repair shops! Yes, my papa is having a lot of trouble with the video camera, so thanks to a friend (Liza) who put us in touch with her friend (Thomas) here in China, we were able to have the camera looked at. Thomas was of great help to us with the translations and spent a few days running around for us. (but alas the camera is still not yet fixed). After a bit of complaining from me about the "unfairness" of all the boring stores they keep taking me to, the next morning we left bright and early for the Panda center. It was great to see the pandas again and I was laughing out loud at their silly antics. (I think the 4 young cubs even looked a bit older).
We also met up with some of the friends that we traveled with in the past weeks - Eric and Trayah (the 2 Canadians) and Daniela (from the horse trek). With them we visited one of the nicest temples we've seen here in China. Wenshu Temple - |
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in Chengdu. It's in a large beautiful setting and has a great vegetarian restaurant where we sampled all kinds of tofu dishes made to resemble "real food"... Surprisingly, it was quite tasty. After lunch we spent some time enjoying the sunshine in the beautiful garden with the many older and younger Chinese. Here I discovered that they, especially the older ones, love to gather around, playing cards and Mahjong (a very noisy card type game played with plastic tiles which are shuffled around). Mahjong seems to be the national pastime of the people here as we see foursomes at tables just about everywhere: in parks, at their homes, on sidewalks, and even inside temple courtyards! Some of the older men bring along their birds - cages and all - and hang them up in the trees beside them (I suppose this gives the birds a chance to socialize as well).
After an hour there we left for the hostel, but while on the bus back, Papa spotted a Carrefour department/grocery store. "Carrefour in China!" he exclaimed. Now those of you who are European will understand the haste he made in jumping out of the bus and heading straight for the large entrance. For the North Americans - picture a Loblaws and Wal Mart mix and you've got one of the largest chain stores in the world! I soon forgave him for dragging me to yet another store as this place was AMAZING - It had everything a kid could want and more... We left 2 hours later with bags of stuff like fresh baked baguettes, pate de campagne, terrine de canard, cheese, some imported chocolates and a few boxes of Kraft dinner! (We even bought a package for our Canadian friends who we knew were homesick for 'mac & cheese").
That evening I also had an opportunity to experience a Chinese cultural show (we had arranged to meet our friends for dinner and the show). This particular Sichuan opera was special as it was held in a quaint teahouse and performed with puppets and people in dramatic masks. One dance in particular caught my attention because the man doing the dance kept changing masks with the flick of his hand. It was like magic! And very interesting to watch as every few seconds he had on a different facial expression complete with coloured make-up!
The next day there was more errands to do - Fuji lab again, and our Tibetan carpets to mail. We spent a good part of the afternoon wrapping the latter "mummy-style" in plastic, paper and tape before mailing it to my aunty Joanna's new condo address with the hope that it arrives sometime before we do next summer. It should however arrive around the 24th of Dec. ... and, NO! Aunty Joanna,... Papa says this is NOT your Christmas present! That evening we went to dinner to have one of my favorite dishes - Peking duck - I love the idea of wrapping crispy duck skin in small crepe pancakes, slopping on the sweet plum sauce and adding the vegetables before wrapping it up and eating..... Ummmm good! The rest of the duck is then brought out as a meat dish and then the bones as a soup. Interesting way to eat. |
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The next day Nov. 23, we left for a day trip to an ancient village called Huang Long Xi, about an hour away by bus. It was a bit touristy but still nice to wander through the small cobble stone streets with the old wooden houses. Its claim to fame here is that the movie "Hidden Tiger, Crouching Dragon" was filmed here. We had a quick lunch of vegetables, noodles and dumplings. There were a lot of tourist things to do - boat trips on the river, go-carts to ride, trinkets to buy and of course pictures to take. The small temple there was nice as well. We could have spent a few more hours wandering around but we had to make the trip back to Chengdu. |
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That night mummy was not well - an allergic reaction to some green vegetables kept her up all night and therefore in bed all the next day. (One would think the folks would listen to me when I tell them vegetables make you sick....) Our plans to leave for Leshan and Xichang were thus postponed. I spent the day with papa and got a chance to play some more with Yanchee - (We even got all dressed up in beaded hats and did a "song and dance show" for all the travelers staying at the hostel). The next day mummy was better and so we did some final running around, picking up film at Fuji, and discovering a beautiful Thangka (Tibetan silk painting)... at which point papa was once again sent in to negotiate the best price. |
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