I loved Chengdu!

The city is not all that exciting but the hostel I stayed in made it such a cool experience and the people I met made the trip even more fun!

I spent one morning at the people's park with thousands of Chinese people. The people watching was simply amazing and I had lots of great fun just watching people.
The park is pretty big and there are many activities to do such as rowing a boat, or feeding the koi fish by the pond.

Here is the bonsai garden with tons of cute bonsai trees.



The kid area was very funny, first they had a fake pool with plastic fish for kids to catch them right next to the Koi pond. The funniest thing was to see how they feed the koi! Usually people get little balls of fish food to throw in the water but not here! People were given a baby bottle with brown liquid food on a stick, they had to put the bottle in the water and the koi would come and suck on the bottle! It was so bizarre!



They have an area for tea drinking and there are hundreds and hundreds of people drinking tea and eating shelled peanut. The peanut shells are all over the floor and all over their tables!
In China people order one kind of tea and then they get unlimited hot water to drink all they want so they could spend the whole day drinking tea at the park if they feel like it!


Seating by the pond was by far the most entertaining part of people watching! People could not properly row their boats and it was simply a mess! Boats hitting other boats, people going in circles, plus all the people with their selfie sticks! It was very amusing!


Just like any other park in China, there were groups of people dancing all over the park!

 And... People taking selfies with the flowers! Every time there were flowers there were people taking selfies. I talked about this with some friends at the hostel and we realized that since they all live on top of each other they probably do not have gardens or plants at their house so when they go to the park they are amazed by the flowers and have to take pictures.


I also visited the Kuanxiangzi alley, a street full of shops and people!





Pandas pandas pandas everywhere!!!!!!!! There are lots of panda shops all over Chengdu selling everything imaginable with a panda on it!



Chengdu is famous for its Sichuan Opera shows and along this street I got to see some people dressed up to promote the show, the costumes are beautiful!



I ate a warm pineapple with sticky rice!

One night my hostel had a free dumpling making party where they taught us how to make dumplings... I like the eating part best!



On sunday I started my day by going to the Wenshu monastery with Melanie, Ben, and Thomas.



This guy did not have arms and painted Chinese letters by holding the brush with his foot! Very impressive!


Tea time...

Tea Time selfie :)

 After tea Ben and I headed to the Aidao Nunnery and had a vegetarian lunch with the nuns for 5 yuans (less than a dollar!)



It all started by going to the washing room and grabbing 2 bowls and a pair of chopsticks, then we walked to the dinning hall, found a place to sit and waited until somebody rang a gong.

Then a lady came around serving veggie stew in one on the bowl, and then another lady came to give us some rice.

 After everybody was served they all started singing/ chanting in Chinese. The lady next to me kept on giving me a sheet of paper with the lyrics to sing! Very nice of her but I do not read Chinese :(

When they were done singing then it was time to eat... First time I see a room with 200 Chinese people quiet!




I spent the afternoon exploring the Tibetan quarter, which was pretty much like every other turisty street in China, very commercialized, full of shops, and very crowded.

I saw a man drying up tea leaves.





This is how they carry recyclables!! :-O
For dinner I went on my own to try the iconic food of Chengdu... the HOT POT!
I got there and Thomas, a Chinese friend, was kind enough to offer to talk to the waiter over the phone so I would get what I wanted!

It was a buffet style hot pot and I actually had no idea how to eat it so of course I used my spying skills and observed people and copied them! haha I hope I didn't do it all wrong! But maybe I did! I took whatever I wanted and dumped it in the pot but some of the things seemed like they didn't need to be cooked! Anyway,  I ate my meal but I thought it was only average and very salty :(

The last night at the hostel was probably the best night, it was Halloween!!! And they went all out and threw a Halloween party with pumpkin carving, face painting, and a super fun balloon game!


with my team mate in the balloon game! we won 3rd place and got a free beer.. neither one of us drinks beer!

And my roommate! :)

The staff at the hostel was just so kind and helpful, I really loved them all! They made my stay a lot more enjoyable with their happy demeanor and their willingness to always help!
I thought it was really cute how they asked for help on how to do the party and asked how to carve pumpkins since they had never done it! This was probably one of my favorite nights in china!

Sadly, I had to leave after 6 days and move on to Lijiang!!!