Our plane landed around 10 pm, and as we were nearing the exit, a girl stood at the bottom of the escalator with a bouquet of flowers and an lp, squealing. Someone famous must have been on our or another plane.
We turned a corner and at the airport exit stood at least two hundred people, all with cameras waiting. Flowers, signs, selfie sticks. As we walked through the crowd, Josh threw up two peace signs like Nixon. The crowd cheered and laughed. "Welcome to Sichuan," a tiny girl said.
The next morning, we woke up early for an important mission: pandas. Chengdu has a panda reserve and breeding center. Our hostel even had a handy card for taxis that said something like Take me to pandas. It was recommended to arrive early when they are more active.
Unfortunately, the reserve is pretty much a zoo. The pandas were in both indoor and outdoor enclosures that didn't feel very reserve-y. But, we saw pandas. Definitely huggable.
We returned to the hostel for the second mission of the day: food. Sichuan food: spicy, face-melting. We asked the reception folks for a recommendation. This seems to be a weird thing to ask in China. Every time we ask for a restaurant recommendation, people look confused, kind of shy, "I don't know," etc. But, one guy offered up a suggestion and wrote out an order for us on a card. (So often, we get to a restaurant and the menu is only in Chinese so we're like, uh, well... and run away.)
We walked down the street and took a right that was not the way to go. We came to a ditch, and two older gentlemen announced, "No way out!" They repeated, "No way out," and laughed. Josh approached them, and they super helpfully (albeit repeatedly) told us to go back and take two rights. Found it.
Then we set off on another day of walking. We found Culture Park, which is big and old and has lots of trees. Groups of old Chinese people sat around tables playing cards, mahjong, and go. It was pretty scenic.
The park is next door to the biggest and oldest still-active Taoist temples in Yunnan. We wandered around in there, tried to sketch some dragons, watched some nuns sing.
Then we had our first failure of the day. I will have to write a whole post on trying to get places, because it's a topic of its own, and we've had too many experiences to list here. Briefly: we couldn't find this one tea house.
Once again, Josh is popular: On the subway, a young man asked Josh where he was from. He said the U.S. Then the guy wanted a picture with him.
After way too much walking (Chengdu has only two metro lines that form an X), we finally landed at The Bookworm bookstore. Cocktails, English-language books, couches.
I had to load up on reading material for a ten hour train ride to come (didn't happen, see future post on trying to get places). The Bookworm hosts a literary festival and has their own journal/small press for Chinese writers writing in English. I dug through their translation section and grabbed two magazines, their journal, Northern Girls by Sheng Keyi (who wrote Death Fugue--this one about migrants coming to Shenzhen which sounds more appealing now that I've seen it), and the story collection Snow and Shadow by Dorothy Tse. I started the last yesterday, and I was floored by how incredibly dark and weird it is. Purchase success.
Our mission now turned to the promised land: a Chinese hardcore show.
Oh, how I wanted to see a crazy Chinese band. But, after a not-so-great dinner, the fiftieth long walk of the day, a helpful woman, and a maze of a taxi ride, we could not find the venue. So sad.
Finally, we resigned to return to the hostel, and we woke up for what would be an entire day of trying and failing to get places.
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