Denali
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2012
- Posts
- 6,077
Hi again,
As Chengdu (western China) isnt a tourist’s first choice to visit, i thought I would share some pics of our trip.
The flight was Singapore Airlines so it was as amazing as expected. Our seats to Changi was their medium haul and on the way home the older business class seats and obviously enjoyable and relaxed flights were had. Oh and as an added surprise, my husband was not aware that we had upgraded to J for our Syd>Changi section (he knew we were coming home J) so that was a nice way to start our trip.
While in Chengdu, we enjoyed the food, the city and the Pandas, which is why most tourists go to Chengdu for. To hold the pandas currently costs approx $400AUD (2000yuan) and we visited both the panda centre in Chengdu and another one a few hours in the country near Yaan. The food was amazing, the spice and heat didn’t burn your mouth but gave an numbness so you were still able to enjoy your meal.
We had ventured to some area that westerners arent usually seen so we were touched, photographed, stalked and caused quite a bit of excitement in some places. People would jump out of cars and/or cross streets to have photos with us and a complete restaurant came to silence when we walked in. One meal we looked up and people would be standing by the table, just staring at us. Some days it was fun, some days downright annoying but what can you do but smile. I did lose a pair of sunglasses when one woman was so excited to see me, she came running and jumped/sat on my bag, breaking them. If this is "fame", its not fun but its not every day you get photo bombed near the Tibetan border by a monk on his iPhone while stealing their wifi.
Overall Im sad that China as embraced consumerism just like the rest of us but they are no longer faced with lack of food and they have more freedom and opportunities, even though I did have to rent a VPN to get my social media fix. The old China can still be found, you just have to find it.
As Chengdu (western China) isnt a tourist’s first choice to visit, i thought I would share some pics of our trip.
The flight was Singapore Airlines so it was as amazing as expected. Our seats to Changi was their medium haul and on the way home the older business class seats and obviously enjoyable and relaxed flights were had. Oh and as an added surprise, my husband was not aware that we had upgraded to J for our Syd>Changi section (he knew we were coming home J) so that was a nice way to start our trip.
While in Chengdu, we enjoyed the food, the city and the Pandas, which is why most tourists go to Chengdu for. To hold the pandas currently costs approx $400AUD (2000yuan) and we visited both the panda centre in Chengdu and another one a few hours in the country near Yaan. The food was amazing, the spice and heat didn’t burn your mouth but gave an numbness so you were still able to enjoy your meal.
We had ventured to some area that westerners arent usually seen so we were touched, photographed, stalked and caused quite a bit of excitement in some places. People would jump out of cars and/or cross streets to have photos with us and a complete restaurant came to silence when we walked in. One meal we looked up and people would be standing by the table, just staring at us. Some days it was fun, some days downright annoying but what can you do but smile. I did lose a pair of sunglasses when one woman was so excited to see me, she came running and jumped/sat on my bag, breaking them. If this is "fame", its not fun but its not every day you get photo bombed near the Tibetan border by a monk on his iPhone while stealing their wifi.
Overall Im sad that China as embraced consumerism just like the rest of us but they are no longer faced with lack of food and they have more freedom and opportunities, even though I did have to rent a VPN to get my social media fix. The old China can still be found, you just have to find it.
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