Chengdu and Lijiang

Here's the thing. Pandas are the cutest animals ever. Yes. Ever. Fun fact though: newborn pandas are not. They look exactly like naked mole rats. After a few weeks though they are super adorable and continue to be so for the rest of their lives. We only spent one day in Chengdu, and our first stop was the Panda Sanctuary, where they have about 80 pandas. Most of them were inside, but there were enough around that we spent about 3 hours there. I literally overdosed on cuteness and am still talking in a slightly squeaky voice.

 

Then, in the afternoon, we went to the Tibetan neighborhood in Chengdu. It definitely did not make up for us not being able to go to Tibet (the Chinese government forbid it, so they had to rearrange our tour) but it was still amazing to see. There are monks walking around everywhere, sitting in the stores, and generally acting like it's no big deal to be a Buddhist monk. The stores are full of beautiful Tibetan art, prayer wheels, jewelry, and ornate statues of Buddha. I got a set of prayer beads and a gorgeous carved incense burner box. It was so frustrating though that I couldn't communicate with the store owners at all. I had about a million questions and would have talked and talked for days if I could have.

 

A quick note on the food there- it is the only variation we've really had so far. Chengdu is in the Sichuan province, meaning that the food is really spicy. REALLY spicy. They gave us 2-star spicy food (on a 5-star scale) which, while delicious, almost gave me PTSD flashbacks to the time I tried the spiciest sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings.

 

After Chengdu, we hopped back on a plane for a brief trip to Lijiang, which turned out to be my favorite place so far. The Old Town, where our hotel was, doesn't allow vehicles on its streets. The entire place is paved in large stones and has narrow, winding streets. If I had gotten lost I don't think I ever would have made it back to the hotel. It has become pretty touristy and is lined in small shops decorated with red lanterns that sell jewelry, antiques, and clothes that are much more of a bohemian style than traditional Chinese.

 

In the morning we went to a museum about the history of the Naxi (pronounced Nah-shee) people, who are native to the area. This region became part of China relatively recently (like 800 years ago) and the people seem to have much less allegiance to China as a country, and especially the Chinese government. Our guide was the first Chinese person I've met to blatantly criticize the current government and Mao specifically.

 

After the museum, we went to a beautiful park at the foot of the edge of the Himalaya Mountains. I climbed about 3 steps of the trail, so now I can say I've hiked the Himalayas:-) While wandering around the park, I was approached by a group of Chinese tourists who asked if they could take a picture with me. I said yes, which led to more tourists asking to take pictures with me. In China, the ideal woman has a big nose and is pale. Also, my blonde hair and blue eyes are especially exotic, so I stand out A LOT here. I've decided to embrace it though, as very few people appreciate paleness in the USA. Our guide told me that many people in China have seen white people, but have never seen someone in person with blonde hair and blue eyes. The photo shoot was a little awkward but mostly I had fun with it.

 

In the afternoon, we went to a training school for girls to learn embroidery. The art they make it truly amazing. In the gallery, we saw many works that had been copies from paintings, and looked exactly like paintings. Incredible detail! Some of them took people who had been studying embroidery for over 10 years, a full year to make.  Then, we went to a small town up in the hills where there was a small museum about Dr. Rock, who despite his misleading name, was an anthropologist in the early 20^th century who lived among the native people and chronicled their lives.

 

One of the best parts of this stop was our local guide: Wu. He studied Chinese literature in university and now works part time as a teacher and volunteers at a nature conservancy in addition to his tour guide job. He has a great mastery of English and has gone above and beyond to learn how to speak English in, what I assume, he thinks is a poetic and authentic way. He has literally memorized every idiom of the English language and uses them whenever remotely appropriate. This means that he averages an idiom every two sentences or so, making him extremely entertaining to listen to. A typical example: "First we will go to the gift shop. Remember a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush so feel free to spread the wealth. We've had a lot of balls up in the air today so we'll take a break before dinner and you can get forty winks." A great sense of humor!

 

Now we're back on a plane, flying to Kunming. This trip involves a lot of travel, which is tedious but makes sense. Turns out China is a pretty big country!