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Chongqing bustled and hilled, while Chengdu stretched flat, with endless, hard-to-cross avenues. In a way, the city reminded me of Shenyang , down to the massive Mao Zedong statue overlooking Tianfu Square.
Visually, Chengdu was less “exciting,” but it was interesting in many other ways.
Yes, the pandas , of course, but also the Leshan Giant Buddha in a nearby city. We went on a day trip to admire the 71-meter-tall stone statue, built between 713 and 803 during the Tang dynasty. It’s really, really massive, and Leshan turned out to be a fun city to explore as well.
What else did we do in Chengdu?
We tried to stay away from rabbit heads and overly spicy Sichuan food. Just like in Chongqing, they love eating spicy hotpots and adding generous amounts of chili oil to anything. Ordering wéi lā (維拉) noodles—barely spicy—made me drink an entire bottle of water.
We tried to master the Sichuan accent—”They all speak like Deng Xiaoping!” Feng laughed. I like the local accent, it sounds very cute and almost childish, especially compared to the Northeast dōngběi huà , the flavour of Mandarin I’m most used to.
We visited the Whenshu Yuan Monastery and the Wu Hou Shrine, which is the mecca of the Three Kingdoms—the entire place is dedicated to Zhuge Liang, the Marquis Wu of the Kingdom of Shu. We shopped at Tianfu Square (yep, panda stuff) and wandered around the night market in Jinli Street.
I hadn’t finished exploring Chengdu yet, but we had to leave. We found plane tickets back to Beijing. It’s time.
The Wenshu Yuan Monastery (文殊院)
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Traffic in Chengdu and Leshan
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