Chengdu

After the mammoth cross country bus journeys, early mornings, and the late arrival at Chengdu being able to sleep in felt like a real luxury. We all met for breakfast and then decided to head out to some cultural highlights. Namely McDonalds followed by Starbucks. An entirely authentic Chinese experience - honest.

And after doing nothing but eat and drink, a load of us headed out for Szechuan Hotpot - which was a real experience. Everyone sits around a table in the centre of which is a huge pot of boiling oil crammed full with red hot chilies and a type of pepper that makes your mouth go numb.

You order the food, and everything is raw, and you pick what you want and cook it in the boiling oil. It was incredibly spicy - even hotter than a Vindaloo. But a very sociable and fun way to eat.

Anyway - that night Pascal suggested we go to a club he knew - and man - what an experience it was. From the minute we walked in, locals were totally fascinated by the fact that there were westerners in the club. All the Chinese wanted to either dance with us, or drink beer - even though none of us could speak each others language.

I spent zero on drinks all night - and there was no shortage of drinks to go around. I spent the last hour of the night chatting to some Tibetan guys how could speak reasonable English. They were such nice friendly people - and very kindly shared some of their beer with me. It was one of those moments where I really felt I'd connected with some of the local people.

We finally made it back to the hostel at 5am, and I was feeling totally awake - so decided to do some e-mail. It turns out Irish was on Facebook so we ended up chatting for a while, and then it seemed pointless going to bed as the Panda trip we were booked on left at 7:40am.

It was a great morning out - Pandas are really cute - although they do have long claws and sharp teeth - and a few looked like they'd be happy to have a go if you got too close.

So cute:





"You lookin' at me?"



And our chance to get really close to some real life pandas:



After a rather good lunch at the hostel, I headed out to see the Wenchu Temple (well I had to do something cultural). It looks like something out of a Kung Fu movire - so did some moves - but now one was up for wire effect style Kung Fu :-(





Sit!



AKA - The Dharma Initiative:



Chengdu Old Town:



And then it was more food - this time a tiny place with a Chinese menu and no English. We spent 10 minutes trying to work out what it said, and then the owner walked up and asked in perfect English what we wanted :-)

And that was Chengdu...