4 nights in 成都 (ChengDu, China)

 

So this summer has another China trip, where I took my finals early so I could have as much time as I could. Me and my sister basically have 2 weeks there after factoring out travel days, which is honestly enough time, as 3 weeks last year felt a bit long though I am not complaining I definitely prefer 3 weeks over 2 weeks. However, with 2 weeks in Hohhot, our hometown, I was NOT EXPECTING my sister to just message me this randomly while cramming and studying for my early finals:

I'm going to ChengDu, SiChuan, China, along with my sister without my mom or any relatives, where I did not agree to it. I've dreamed of going to ChongQing for so long it is pretty high up there in the bucket list and ChengDu is probably 2nd place right after it, so obviously I want to go but at first bro I was so confused and I was not supportive because of how cooked it is just us 2 going to ChengDu like our reading skills are pretty mid and were so cooked like we are foreigners u need to have someone there with u and theres no google maps and everything is just cooked I could go into more specifics but I dont have time lmao cuz its like 12 AM when Im writing this in day 1 and I need to sleep but long story short I like explain everything to my sister and I start tweaking out I send the kevin garnett crashing out gif at least like 3 times lmao and she got mad saying i should be happy and stuff cuz were going to see huahua the famous panda in chengdu. But man my sister is so ambitious like this was so insanely out of the blue its actually insane like looking back on it but here I am now sitting in my hotel room with my sister after just straight up a sensational day 1. Let's talk about it.

6/14 - Day 1 (arrival & adventuring, hotpot)

So we've been in Hohhot for like 3-4 days at this point and now its time to take a miny trip to Chengdu slotted in between this trip. Our flight is at 10 AM, me and my sister are at lao yi jia aka great aunt house, one of our uncles comes to pick us up and so we drive to the airport and we board the flight smoothly theres actually quite a few empty seats near the back in our flight. Anyway we arrive at like 1 PM or something i dont remember there was quie a bit of turbulence during the flight, I did some cubing where I got 2 sub-10s and I also played some of this yahtzy game on my phone and watched a downloaded flight vid and half of a yes theory vid on my computer.

When we step out of the airport it still doesnt feel real, theres a 'welcome to chengdu' sign with a panda and its raining. My sister orders a chinese-version 'uber' to our hotel. Now is the time to say that in these 3-4 days in hohhot before our chengdu trip that she has been practicing all the chiense apps. We've been using that 'didi' app aka chinese uber for transportation a lot and using her wechat scanner alipay stuff to buy stuff at stores and one of my moms sister also gave us her backup phone so we can pay thru there if we want. My sister has done a ton of research and booked all the hotels and flights and stuff and there was a couple of hickups with the alipay but we did a lot of practice and yea honestly im pretty proud of my sister like this is so ambitious and shes handling it rly well like its quite a lot of research.

The uber ride to our hotel which is very close to downtown is like 30 min and I remember looking at the streets and thinking that honestly it looks a lot like the streets in hohhot or just generic chinese streets and being kinda underwhelmed. However, once we got off, checked in to our hotel, dropped our bags, and started adventuring (it was like 3 pm or something at this point), things started to get real. We first went inside a nearby mall and theres literlaly malls everywhere in China its almost like saturated how many malls there are like its so much to take in. We ate our lunch which was honestly fire my sister ordered dan dan mian and i ordered some deep fried tang yuan lmao i was trolling but it was a solid lunch i had some airplane lunch so I wasnt even hungry. We also got boba drinks and mine was pretty fire it was some matcha guava thing with this weird boba thing idk what the boba was but it was rly good.

We explored the famous street ChunXi road I believe and man what do I even say to talk about it it's just so many stores theres like multiple stories theres so many people theres so many stores and literally when u go inside any store you realize that its part of a huge mall and theres like huge malls everywhere and huge stores with multiple stories like its actually so insane theres a lot of young ppl there. I was just taking everything in, then we saw this huge square and man theres just so many open areas too where theres just so many ppl and so many stores and so much going on like yea this is the ChengDu I was expecting and hyping up.

Then afterwards after a lot of walking and exploring (visited some really cool attractions like this panda sculture thing on a building and we viewed it from the roof of a mall its kinda ocmplicated, bought some panda souveniers, we also went to this area with a ton of historical religious buddhist buldings which was cool and a panda bookstore like i dont think its possible for the readers to grasp how cool everything was man i legit needed some time to sit down and reflect halfway thru adventuring like bro what is life like this is so incredible and i feel like im taking it for granted honestly its impossible not to like wtf am i supposed to how do i appreciate this) and I actually lost my umbrella and found it again and oh yea it stopped raining too during pretty much the rest of the day, we were hungry and decided to hop in this hot pot place especially cuz SiChuan is known for their insane spice levels and spicy hot pot so LETS GET ITTTTTTTTTT it was like 7 PM or something and bro when the hot pot came bro I was legit so shocked my jaw dropped like not evn being corny bro like the aura from that pot with all those peppers laid out like that and just how deep of a red color that was like bro seeing this in-person with just the size of the pot and everything bro it is honestly sensational dude like I honestly feel like I use this word sensational way too much but Im sorry bro i have to say that its sensational. I drank some of the hot pot spicy water and BRO IT LEGIT HIT MY THROAT SO FAST LIKE BRO CHILL HOW DID IT START GOING THAT FAST BRO I LEGIT COUDLNT LIKE INHALE PROPERLY MY THROAT WAS SO DRY AND MY MOUTH WAS JUST SO SPICY BRO I WAS FREAKING OUT my sister recorded me. The hot pot experience the entire time was basically just me tweaking out cuz of how spicy evyerhing was like bro the spicy liquid would build up in the bottom of my bowl so at the end of the day I was drinking a ton of that spicy hot pot water bro but it was so good I totally understand the hype dude I like didnt know it woul dhave this much aura with the hot pot bro like honestly you readers have to experience this man its so special it was so good.

Then after that I got a ton of the hot pot oil on the sleeve of my white shirt so that is so cooked bruh like I explicity tried my best idk how it splashed there like the sleeves were rolled up and everying bro insert the kevin garnett crashing out gif anyway we walked nearby and ate this like dessert thing its like the meetfresh stuff in america but like it actually tastes good bro it was so good when u add the cocunut milk like it feels like eating a warm cookie bro I used to think this type of dessert was so overrated but nah this is so valid if they make it like this.

then after that it was nighttime now and we took a chinese uber 'didi' to this liek famous bridge attraction or just like basically the river and bro its just so amazing like all the lights and everything like theres so many details i can talk about but i gotta go to bed bruh it was so good we walked for like 2 hrs i would say we took some breaks in between resting and took some photos and it was so nice, the weather was so nice, and it was thru this that like I realized how big ChengDu and truly how populated it was like everywhere you go theres just so many ppl its so insane and bro we walked thru quite a lot of places like there was so much stuff going on and so many lights and random buildings and attractions and bars and so many ppl like you just have to go there to experience it for urself man like idk what to say bro theres so much to talk about this is my first time giong outsid eof hohhot in china for a while we went to beijing like 10+ years ago or somehing.

So lets do a very fast reflection on this day 1. I was expecting to be absolutely blown away and that legit happened. I DID NOT expect that hot pot to be like that like HOLY that such a surprise just the aura man what a fire dinner. Then after dinner experiencing the night life man theres just too much to talk about it was so cool bro like bro it was so cool. The weather was really solid, its gonna be +10 degrees fahreiheit hotter tmrw so yea its acutally gonna start being hot. It didn't feel humid like it does in shanghai or florida so well see if its just a 1 day thing. I saw a lot of non-chinese tourists too and they stick out cuz theyre not chinese, like youll see htem once every 5 minutes or like 10 minutes or something. Other than that yeah thats all the reflections I can put for htis day 1, time to go to bed, ill see u for day 2.

6/15 - Day 2 (adventuring)

Yea this is cooked I'm writing this at the end of day 3 cuz i absolutely couldnt at the end of day 2 cuz i had to go to bed asap yesterday cuz i woke up at like 6 am today in day 3 bro ok lets summarize day 2

woke up at like 7:30 am or something and got breakfast at some xiao long bao place, walked to the wait im not even gonna lie i have to interrupt bro this post is gonna take forever to write im gonna write this some other day i hvae to wake up at 6 am again tmrw for pandahuahua ill just jot down bullet points so i dont forget stuff

• big square
• went to a famous big square i forgot what its called but it was very open and really cool to see honestly an interesting contrast from the rest of the city. we didnt spend much time, we took the train nearby to peoples park
• ren ming gong yuan aka chengdu peoples park
• i saw xiaoma and also im pretty sure ishowspeed go here so it was really cool, this park is super big and theres so many walkways and things to do and stuff its a really big park. most importantly we went to the marriage market which was an unforgettable experience it was pretty cool like there were quite a lot of posters. There were just so many posters for each gender and me and my sister would spend time looking thru some of them and translating some of them. other than that we also went to some random museum stuff and did a lot of walking
• random touristy street i forgot the name
• then we took a chinese uber i think to this street thing with a lot of ppl and super touristy and there were a lot of tea places that were giving us free samples and the tea was really good too it was like dried fruit tea with no actual tea we were tempted to buy some but realistically we dont rly drink tea like that but it was cool
• we also watched a bian lian aka chengdu changing face show which is worth watching if u go to chengdu JUST PLEASE DONT SETTLE FOR $48 RMB PER PERSON because u can easily watch the shows for like 18 rmb idk why we settled for the first one we saw but its fine at the end of the day
• then we ate lunch, and its been a long time since this day happened and i didnt write down the bullet point for what lunch was actually so yea rip
• then we went to some mall
• i forgot which mall it was pretty big and cool but we did a ton of shopping like prob like 3 hrs or more and we went to muji, uniqlo, some other random stores, i actually bought some stuff whcih wasnt the case last year in china. but anyway that was fun and satisfying we had like bags full of clothes
• then we had dinner, i had spicy beef noodles, i think before dinner i got rly mad at my sister lmao which is memorable experience
• then after dinner we were so tired but we went to this huge world center thing
• like it was huge and inside weas just a huge open mall with a water park and it kinda felt sad like they should use this building for some stadium or convention center but its just another watered down saturated mall like it feels like wasted potential honestly like it really made me feel something about china. 
• then after going to that mall we went to these 2 towers
• it was really cool i remember driving by it when giong to the malls and i really wanted to see it. It's just like these 2 lightup towers and its so cool we went to this skyway bridge place to view it and i took an insane vehicle lights timelapse ull see it in my youtube video. the towers actually turned off after like 10 pm or something which is actually good it saves energy and i was hoping it would do that
• then after this it was late and we went ot be

6/16 - Day 3 (du jiang yan, pandas)

 - du jiang yan city pandas center, du jiang yan, lunch, hiking across tons of temples, dinner, walking aroun chen xi lu at night

• du jiang yan city pandas center
• we woke up at like 6 am cuz i forgot why but it is cooler and not as much ppl and i def think that was a good play cuz the crowds later on were pretty big. we took a chinese uber 1 hr away northwest to the dujiang yan city, and in there is a xiong mao gu which is like some panda research center over there, and there were tons of pandas it was really cool. we saw 2 pandas in hohhot at a zoo the days before chengdu but it was not the experience like this with the quantity and quality. We got to see the pandas up close and they were eating and walking around and it was really cute, we even saw a red panda just casually walking by us on a pathway which we are rly lucky to experience. red pandas are pretty cute i like them, rly cool experience
• du jiang yan
• then we took another chinese uber shortly to du jiang yan, this historical damn in china thats been supplying cheng du with water for many many years. You know Ive been hopping in my moms chinese class every monday and wednesday for some months and among the stuff i learned was du jiang yan and its history and mechanics quite thoroughly, so this was honestly very surreal like i woudlve never expected to see all the lessons my mom taught in person. it was really cool crossing the bridge over the ming jiang and wai jiang onto the yu zui and stuff
• the du jiang yan itself was rly hot tho but it was cool and also very big theres a ton to explore and a lot of ppl there
• lunch
• we ate lunch at another sichuan style restaraunt where i ordered some spicy noodles again. we also got boba drinks before and my sister got this dragonfruit fruit drink that was soo good like the boba here is so good and fresh
• hiking across ton of temples
• then nearby the dujiang yan is more tourist attractions featuring a ton of hiking trails and temples and stuff like we just kept climbing up and there were more and more temples to visit it was so tiring. at this point like dude i felt so digsusting it was so hot and we kept spamming water and the water is so expensive here but we have no choice we have to buy it for like 4 rmb or something which in the long run makes no difference but we know were getting scammed but for our health bro we need that water
• but anyway it was a long hike like we spent like 2 hrs hiking or something, there were some rly cool views, it honestly kinda reminds me of this one hike we did in sintra, portugal last year but instead of like castles its chinese temples
• dinner
• at this point it was like 6 pm after a lot of hiking, mind you we woke up at 6 am and we didnt have no nap, we were so tired and slimy from all the sweat like holy what a hike
• then chen xi lu
• after we walked around chen xi lu since its nearby our hotel, it was prob like 10 pm or something and there were still a lot of things going on. some stores were closed but the energy was still mad high it was really fun

6/17 - Day 4 (hua hua, panda research, hot pot, jilin street)

• panda hua hua
• so hehua is a famous celebrity panda in the chengdu panda research base which is basically like a zoo but all pandas everywhere exhbiits, anyway huahua is known for just being cute and very fat and round and having no neck. my sister started watching her on ig reels a ton like literally more than a year ago, she would tell me about the news lmao like how her 'brother' heye was separated from their mother or something and ppl were protesting and spam calling lmao and then later turns out that he ye was actually her sister and was a girl and they just got it wrong when she was a baby cuz its hard to tell or something
• so basically my sister literally booked this trip very heavily motivated to see hua hua like tahts how much she loves her and here in our last full day in chengdu it all builds up to this, the big moment and the main reason why we came here LOL
• woke up at 6 AM so sleepy like I couldnt even open my eyes when walking like bruh but we made it out, speedran a mantou (steamed buns) on the street and booked a taxi. The panda exhbit opens at 7:30 AM and we got there at around 7 AM and there was already like a ton of ppl ahead of us in the line. Now if ure wondering why its cuz huahua is legit that big of a celebrity especially in china. You only get to see her for 3 minutes and if you dont wake up at 6 AM like us and try to see her during the daytime, youll typically wait 3 hours. My sister did a ton of research aka watching tips videos on how to see huahua on chinese tiktok app. Basically once the research center opens at 7:30 AM theres a legit race like everyones running to exhbiit where huahua is in and its like a 1-2 minute run. 
• Now once it became 7:30 and they scanned us in finally (sidenote me and my sister being US citizens actually slightly helped us in the race because we went in like a special line in our group while the main line for the rest of the chinese citizens was long) then WE WERE IN AND I LEGIT BOLTED I WAS LEGIT SPRINTING LIKE CRAZY. Dude this was an unforgettable experience like I hear some older ppl saying "哎呀这年亲人" and ppl swearing and bro everyone was running but i was legit sprinting like crazy i almost slipped near the beginning and bro like if ure not running during this time you look dumb like everyone is legit running. While I was sprinting and trynna pass by ppl there was this dude that was blocking me on the left side and I legit gripped his shoulder and legit shoved him to the side cuz i was gonna run into him lmao that was honestly so funny looking back on it bro and then once we made it I was like I would say top 70 or something, I realized I was really out of shape cuz I got gassed so quickly cuz I sprinted way too hard in the beginning, i was the opposite of slow and steady, i took a walking break during this like skinny corridor part before being so gassed breathing heavily continuing running just fueled by this once in a lifetime race. Once i made it to the line there was like 2-3 groups called in before my group was called. Now when the next group is called they let in like 20 ppl or something and its another semi-sprint to get a good spot in the front view of hua hua and now u have 3 minutes to take videos and stuff LOL
• So i actually at first like couldn't really recognize the hua hua in hua hua as in she looked the same as all the other pandas ive seen. But after a while I started seeing like the neck and stuff and she started looking like huahua. Looking back its cuz all the clips we see are thru a phone screen so she looks different irl. But anyway she was eating and it was rly cute I'm really satisfied cuz her position was solid and she wasnt sleeping or being boring. Apparently pandas are most active when its not hot so in the morning so that also helps. He ye, her sister was next to her and he ye was so much bigger than hua hua. The ppl next to me were talking about he ye too, and after like 2 minutes or something I let other ppl take my spot in the front cuz i got all the good clips i need and i can watch from the 2nd row cuz im taller and i wont block ppl in the front
• Now my sister during all this was a group behind me, so after my 3 minutes was over which felt lowkey longer like more like 4-5 minutes then the next group is called and my sister was in it cuz she ran slower than me. I was trynna get her to cut in line to me but it was kinda akward and honestly it ended up working out like its fine. 
• so yea what an insane experience absolutely unforgettable just everyone running and racing to see hua hua and my sister being so happy and everything working out and just the experience bro like legit seeing her for 3 minutes and everyone being so frantic and all the security patrolling the groups and stuff like this is so unforgettable. Bro i forgot to mention I was SWEATING BALLS like it was so hot even at 7 AM like when I was waiting in the final line after my sprint I was sweating so much and my shirt was like sweaty and its not like I could cool it off over time because its so hot in cheng du like i was so sweaty like normally i cool off after like 5 minutes but u cant do that in chengdu
• rest of the panda research center
• now after seeing hua hua me and my sister did a ton of walking like this place is legit the size of disneyland it feels like and theres so many pandas everywhere. We saw red pandas nearby, then we took this bus thing to an area with a ton more pandas, and generally for like 2 hrs we just saw a ton of pandas which included baby 6-month old pandas with their moms which were so cute, i took so many vids
• lunch
• Then after that we were very hungry cuz the only food we had was at 6 AM and it was like a singular purple bun lmao, we took a chinese uber didi back to our hotel and ate lunch nearby, i ordered this spicy beef noodles and it wasnt even that spicy they labeled it to be their classic like insanely spicy thing but they were tirpping bruh
• Afterwards, my sister and i went back to the hotel and at this point it was legit like so hot it was 100+ f im pretty sure and we were both in like bad moods lmao from all the walking in the morning and we took shower and took a nap till like 5 and chilled untill all the way like 6 pm lol. super needed to reset this and was so fire cuz we were so tired from the little sleep were getting
• hotpot dinner
• for dinner i wanted hotpot cuz its like our 2nd to last meal in chengdu and chengdu is known for spicy hotpot and last time we had hotpot it was really good. We just walked around and first bought some fruit boba drinks i got a grape thing and it was sooo good like i could talk about it but this post is too long just know it was super good anyway then we found some random hot pot place and went in and it was a pretty fire spot. 
• Bro when I ate that first piece of meat I was like "wow this is abnormally spicy" like bro just one piece of meat possessing that much spice is so scary bro i had a moment of uneasiness like bro is this what im dealing with for the rest of dinner. The 1st hotpot was NOT this spicy it was probably barely HALF as spicy if im being real. NOW THIS is the sichuan spicy hotpot they were all talking about. Bro through that entire dinner I drank so much tea, took some breaks, and bro at one point my entire chin was numb like ive never felt spice like this before. It was so good tho, sichuan hotspot is truly such a special experience, its prob unironically my 2nd like biggest takeway and memory from this chengdu trip after the huahua race
• So after that amazing dinner like it was so spicy but I enjoyed the process so much, bro I ate so much I needed a walk badly and bro i could legit feel fire in my stomach like my stomach was hot and my belly was hot this is prob the most spiciness ive ever handled, this is some real stuff this is exactly what i went to chengdu and sichuan for. But anyway we walked a bit then took a chinese uebr didi to this place 
• jinli place street
• then we went to this jinli place it was similar to this place we went to on day 2 but more scenic and more lights and rly nice at night. Took some nice videos and stuff and did some good walking and its legit 2 AM i dont have time to be yapping that much it was fun
• rest of the night
• then we took a taxi aka chinese uber didi back to the hotel, my sister started showeirng and I left as she gave me my aunts phone and room card and I went out to walk around chunxi lu and overall just soodle NOW THATS A VOCAB WORD soodle i remember that from 11th grade ap lang ok anyway it was like 11 PM, most of the shops were closed but there were a ton of those food carts set up everywhere along the streets, it was nice there were still a good bunch of ppl out walking around, it was still so so hot, and i had a fun time, i got back at 12:20 AM and showered and stuff and im writing this anD I NEED TO GO TO BED i still have day 2 and day 3 incompleted imma have to od it on the place tmrw or something

6/18 - Day 5 (departure)

• woke up at 10 AM
• went out across the street to buy some chengdu panda souvenirs cuz we were sitll missing some ppl for gifts. Then we walked around a bit trying to find a breakfast place, I ended up getting this things idk how to say it in english but its like some meat stuffed thing and after we got that we went back to the hotel, packed everything and checked out, then ate lunch where i ordered chongqing noodles and my sister ordered some spicy hundun thing and after lunch we bought some boba from cha panda and then took the taxi to the airport and basically thats the chengdu trip. i gotta talk about the boba here tho like the boba in china is so good like easily if i were to rank like my top 10 boba drniks ever, the first like 6 slots would be china drinks and prob 9/10 of the slots would be china drinks like the standard is so good they use such fresh fruits and its so good and its a plus how cheap it is in usd cuz of economies
• now after our like 3:30 - 6 flight we are back in hohhot and we have a week left in hohhot. im not gonna make a post about the stuff i did in hohhot just cuz its kinda tiring to blog and this chengdu post is rly good. 

Conclusion

so now lets write some conclusion for this post even tho it feels like im writing homework in highschool assignment again but anyway chengdu is really big, theres a ton of stuff to do, and me and my sister did quite a lot and i feel very satisfied with our 4 nights and i feel like it was enough. chengdu has a ton of red colored food and broths and theres so many panda stores and theres so many people everywhere you go. its also very hot like its never a pleasant type of chilliness ever even at night and early in the morning which is pretty crazy like if i was a local i think it would get to me pretty fast. ive never felt so disgusting before after those long days and hikes like i legit get so sweaty in chengdu it is rly that hot and it rains a lot too in the summer even tho we got lucky with the weather as it only rained in the first and last day. i really thoroughly enjoyed the experience in chengdu, im so glad we did this trip as i had some hesitations at first. my sister did honestly a really amazing job with all the navigation and research and payments stuff it was so fun. im gonna make a video where i stitch together all my gopro shots, so stay tuned for that, i got a lotta work to do when i get back.

Lyric(s) of the Post: 和我在成都的街上走一走，喔哦喔哦，直到所有的灯都熄灭了，还不停留

Zhao Lei - 成都