our main reason for coming here was to visit my sister judy, who has been living in chengdu for the past year for her studies. it was an opportunity to spend some time with her and see where she's been calling home for the past year. of course we didn't anticipate spending the two weeks prior to coming here with her as well, so that was a bonus. the first thing i noticed about chengdu was the weather. much to my delight, it was considerably cooler here then the sweltering heat of our previous city, guangzhou. also, chengdu is a much bigger city than i had thought it was going to be. i wasn't sure what i was expecting, but not this huge mega modern city of over 4 million people with another 8 million in the greater chengdu area! since judy had spent the summer traveling, she was in between apartments when we arrived and was not due to take over her new place until december 1st. so our first few days were spent crashing at her friends' apartment, who all just happened to be in shanghai for a few days. after that, the three of us moved to a local hostel called 'the loft' (our home for the next two weeks) closer to the central area of the city, but quite far from judy's familiar stomping grounds of the ke hua bei lu area.
the first few days were spent hanging out and exploring the neighbourhood where judy lived. some of our time was spent helping judy move some of her contents from old to new apartment, meeting a large group of her friends for a vegan dinner at 'vegetarian lifestyles' restaurant, a stroll to wu hou ci (tibetan quarter) and jinli lu (constructed ancient street), visits to the local eateries such as 'the usual place', the 2 dumpling places, peter's tex mex, the cheap noodle shop beside the auto repair place and cafe paname.
after relocating ourselves to 'the loft' hostel, we had many new surroundings to explore and a base in which to start researching our options for traveling to tibet. a local eatery down the street called 'dodo's'; with their friendly staff and service and willingness to accommodate a vegan diet, quickly became a fave hang out of ours. judy knew all the places to go, see and eat, so we followed her lead most of the time, once we found our way to the wenshu fang and the wenshu temple grounds and enjoyed a lovely meal at a vegan buddhist restaurant called 'lotus on the pond'. some of our other destinations included "the bookworm' (a local hang out place, where you can find english language books, games, free wifi and good food!), the 'place under the bridge' (an interesting mix of artists spaces, park space, sculptures, cultural murals, water ways, stages, paintings, men playing cards and people performing on waist drums.) and for laurel and judy, a yoga class with a studio where judy practices and sometimes teaches at, a visit to a 'shopping street', then cafe paname again to see a band from kunming perform and back to vegetarian lifestyles for another meal.
our first really touristy destination was the panda breeding and research center in the northern part of chengdu. its never easy for us to make the decision to go and support a place like this (if you want to know why, ask us later, but for now, we don't need to discuss it in this blog), but for some reason, we thought that this place might be different and we decided to go. well, as cute and as beautiful as the bears were to see, being there solidified to us that we don't need to go to places like this to satisfy our own curiosities or in search of personal enrichment, as it provided none. it only brought to our attention more and more questions about why we think we need to have places like this. anyways, we arrived in the early morning, the grounds were quite large and contained many giant pandas and red pandas of various ages. there were about 10 baby giant pandas only months old, all lying in a big crib inside a facility, one being bottle fed something by an attendant in a sterile looking nurses uniform. there were giant panda cubs, young adults and full size adults as well, all feeding on bamboo in the early morning sunshine. each age group seemingly in their own separate environments. next were the much smaller, lesser known and more active red pandas. they were all roaming about in their own separate environment, playing and climbing on many man-made structures. the rest of the morning was spent walking through the grounds and exploring a very quiet pond area which was also on the grounds.
another day and another venture out to find vegan food! this time to qing yang gong taoist temple (green ram temple), where within the temple grounds, there is a buddhist vegetarian restaurant. on our way there, we strolled through nearby baihuatan park, eventually making our way to the temple grounds. the temple was quite impressive, having to walk through a seemingly endless series of temples before reaching the main temple at the far end of the grounds. we spent the early afternoon walking through this place of calm and peacefulness. off to the side, we find the vegetarian restaurant where we were joined by judys' friend jane. our experience there was not so good to say the least. service was unfriendly and impatient. they were indecisive as to whether they would be able to make us food after 2:00pm and said we would have to wait until 2:30 when they are done their lunch break. we were okay with that. then they told us we should hurry up and order before they go on break. then, they couldn't make one of our dishes because there wasn't enough time before their break, so we had to order something else. all in all a very confusing and not so enjoyable experience. and the food? well, i don't remember how it tasted, so it obviously wasn't very memorable.
a little over a week in chengdu now and we are no closer to being on our way to tibet. we had made a few contacts on the internet, in search of travel partners to help reduce the cost of the tour. we keep on editing our itinerary in order to get the tour cost down to a reasonable per person amount. the process continues. before we can go to tibet though, we need to extend our visas, as our 30 days will be up shortly. so, that takes us to leshan, a city about 2 hours from chengdu and easily done as a day trip. leshan, apparently offers quick turn around visa extensions (1 - 2 days) and is also home to the 'grand buddha' or 'dàfó' as known by the locals, and at 71 metres high, is the worlds largest buddha. we boarded an early morning bus and eventually arrived in leshan around 11am and immediately made our way to the PSB (public service bureau) office and nervously handed in our visa extension applications. the nice PSB lady who served us, had us run next door to make photocopies of our passport pages, then afterwards down the street to the bank of china where we had to pay for our extensions. after this is all done, we hand in all of our paper work. we wait a moment and then breath a sigh of relief when she tells us to come back after 4:00pm to pick up our passports and new visas! phew! now we have a grand buddha to see! after getting a little lost on the way, we eventually find our way to the grand buddha. we spend much of the afternoon walking around the grounds, then climbing down steep narrow stairs to the base of the where the buddha's huge feet rest and then all the way back up on the other side, a steep and sweaty uphill journey, taking many breaks along the way. there is much more to see in the area around the grand buddha, but its now time to make our way back to the PSB office. after a rather confusing and round about pedicab ride, we get back to the PSB office shortly before closing. we pick up our passports and with big grins on our faces, we say 'xie xie' to the nice PSB lady and hop on a bus back to chengdu. a worthwhile day well spent! that evening, back in chengdu, we meet mark, judys' boyfriend who had just returned from his summer long travels through india and central asia. it was nice to finally meet you!
approaching two weeks in chengdu, judy is getting ready to leave for a visit back home to canada, we focus our attention on our tibet tour and work harder now to find an affordable tour and to find partners to travel with. our internet contacts have fallen through, as have other possible leads for travel partners, so it was up to us now to find people in town to travel with. after visits to other guest houses to get quotes and post notices on their message boards, we eventually find a affordable quotation from another guesthouse and we meet a couple from holland who seem to be looking for the same journey through tibet and then overland to nepal. after more discussions and meetings we determine that we all can make this journey through tibet together! we set the wheels in motion, order the train tickets and the tour and now just a couple days for the other couple to go to leshan to extend their visas. november 19th will be our departure date! excitement has set in, now we keep our fingers crossed they'll get their extensions quick enough.
our last few days with judy before she leaves for canada. it has been wonderful to be able to spend so much time and experience so much with her over this past month, it will be hard to say goodbye again. the next couple of days... we shop for our winter coats in preparation for tibet, we take a stroll down beautifully restored 'kuan xiang zi' (ancient area), make another visit to vegetarian lifestyles for dinner, attend small goodbye party for a couple of judy's friends, and finally i get to try a sichuan hot pot dinner with judy and mark. it was definitely a special experience and the food was definitely hot! (i will leave out the painful day after details for now:). we say our goodbyes as judy leaves on sunday, and then mark leaves on monday (bound for a visit back to the u.s.). we meet aviv from israel, who has just come from nepal into china, we have many questions for him about nepal! our tibet partners have returned from leshan and they have their visa extensions, we are set to leave tomorrow night for tibet. over two weeks in chengdu. maybe we stayed a little too long here, as we even outstayed judy, but its now time to move onto the next part of our journey... tibet.
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