Chengdu 成都 - the panda capital of the world!

24.7.2013
From Yunnan we arrived to a new province, Sichuan, and its capital Chengdu (population of 14,427,500 in administrative area), which is surrounded by two rivers in Chengdu Plains. Our main goal here was to see the China's national treasure, the giant pandas, and any other sightseeing was just extra.

You've arrived to the panda capital of the world!

Chengdu airport is the sixth largest airport in China and it's so big, that we had to take a bus from the plane to the terminal. Everyone from our huge plane fit into one bus, because the Chinese are so much smaller than the Western people. At the airport nobody asked our passports anymore, so we just picked our bag and caught a taxi. The waiting line made it easy to take a taxi, the drivers are obligated to drive people on that line. The police also checks that meters are in use. The city center is about 16 km from the airport. We arrived to our hotel around eleven p.m. and weren't too happy with our room; it stank of cigarette and had no internet. Besides, there was no English service in the hotel, so we went to check out other hotels. We had no luck, there weren't many hotels around, so we decided to try and get our own internet working and see how well we will manage with the stinky room.

25.7
WENSHU (MANJUSHRI) MONASTERY

We decided to stay in the same hotel, as the cigarette smell had disappeared some and we didn't have stuffy or runny noses in the morning. The morning started with trying to get an own internet access. We found one store who helped us out, but it took at least an hour to sort out the problem. It seemed very hard for the employee to understand what we wanted, even though she spoke some English. During the process she, her co-worker and a customer had a laugh about us, we might've seemed like stupid tourists (and stupid for not speaking Chinese), but we were very clear with what we wanted and explained the matter in various ways, even with pictures. Sometimes it seems as though Western and Asian (especially Chinese) people are from different planets in their ways of thinking. We've stumbled upon this wall of misinterpretation so many times in China. It is much easier to communicate with people in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Laos. But finally our internet problem was fixed and everyone was happy.

Next we headed to the city for sightseeing. A vegan restaurant happened to be near the Wenshu monastery, so we ate there. The food was ordered with a tablet, with menu in pictures and only in Chinese. Sichuan and Chengdu cuisine is famous around the world and UNESCO has named Chengdu as the City of Gastronomy. We knew we should get some delicious food here. We ordered two dishes, both with tofu which looked good, and they actually ended up being the finest food we got during our travel in China! They were very delicious, yet very spicy with loads of dried chili peppers mixed in, which were also very delicious. The dinner was very cheap, about ten euros altogether. Of course China isn't as cheap anymore as it used to be and you can't compare the prices with Laos, where you get a meal for just one euro.

Yummy vegan lunch with tofu and chili peppers

Wenshu monastery and its park was near closing time, so we had to rush through the area and couldn't marvel at it as much as we wished to and see everything. The monastery was originally built during Southern Dynasties (420-589) and rebuilt in 1697. It has 190 halls and rooms and classical architecture in the style of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). The beautiful Bell Tower and Drum Tower lie outside, with a bronze bell of over 4500 kg hanging in the Bell Tower. I especially enjoyed the small handmade details hardly found in Finland - due to Finns´ love for practicality and simplicity. Chengdu itself has characteristic constructive styles; there are compound houses around a square courtyard (called Siheyuan), suspension wood houses (Diaojiaolou) and small cottages in the woodlands.

Surrounding area of Wenshu Monastery

Peace Pagoda of a Thousand Buddhas at Wenshu Monastery

Wenshu Monastery

Wenshu Monastery

Wenshu Monastery

Aidao Nunnery gates near Wenshu Monastery

The park next to the monastery was small and only took about ten minutes to walk through. There were many all sized turtles in a pond, but no other animals. Chengdu is actually a turtle shaped city, and because of it one of its nicknames is The city of the Turtle. Near the monastery also lies the Aidao nunnery, but it was closed when we got there.

Turtles in the "City of the Turtles"

POETS, PARKS AND A SUNKEN PLAZA

At the Tianfu Square (天府广场) lies the Science and Technology Museum, with Chairman Mao statue greeting in front of it. Tianfu square has beautiful fountains and The Sunken Plaza is also interesting to see with the dragon shaped statue. At the time of our visit the plaza was still under construction. Here you can also find the metro station. The first metro line in Chengdu opened in 2010, so it was still very new when we visited the city. The lines worked well, were easy to use and the stations are also written in English. By using the metro we saw many places in the city and familiarized the center in short time. Other sights to see in Chengdu are (to mention a few) Jinli Ancient street and the park with shrines and temples (with Wuhou shrine and the tomb of warlord Liu Xiang), Jinsha site museum, which has a huge collection of ancient unearthed ivory, gold and jade artifacts, one of the most famous Taoist Palaces in China, the Qingyang Palace at Culture Park, the ancient towns of Lizhuang and Luodai and Four Girls and Qingcheng Mountains for trekking, climbing and sightseeing.

Metro map

Sunken Plaza

The Science and Technology Museum behind the Sunken Plaza. Greeting in front is Chairman Mao.

Fountains at Tianfu Square

We walked around the Chunxi road and Pedestrian street (between Kowloon Plaza and Tianfu Square), which is an area for fashion with many malls, most of them selling expensive fashion. We weren't there to buy stuff though, we just people watched. If you want to send stuff overseas from China be warned, it isn't cheap. This thought crossed my mind, but I had to forget it fast with these prices. Chunxi road, like few of the surrounding streets, has bronze human statues, which are fun to pose with. You might be startled by the statues, they are human size and some of them are in colours. I sometimes found myself thinking another person was standing next to me, when it was a statue.

Bronze human statues at Chunxi Road

Coloured statues at Chunxi Road

Chunxi Road and the surrounding streets are a good place for shopping and other pastimes

Chengdu

While in China I noticed that many of the city people dress the way Finnish people dress when they go to a party or even a wedding. They wear nice things on their average day, whereas in Finland you are looked upon if you overdress or wear fancy colours. Clothes are of course much cheaper here than in Europe so people can afford to dress nicely, and the city people earn better in China nowadays. Our Chinese friend said they earn about 350.- USD a month (in 2013), which is the most common pay. I love to look at all the nicely dressed people and I photographed some of the beautiful Chinese women. Chinese also dress nicely when they go to a sightseeing spot, where they pose for photos. Even in the Kunming Stone Forest, a demanding trekking place if you see everything, people dressed nicely. We realized though, that most local tourists don't do much trekking. They take the busses to see the main sights, so they're not there for the exercise.

Beautifully dressed city people

Later we went to the Huan Hua Xi park (浣花溪公园), which is the place for the Thatched Cottage of Du Fu, a very famous poet who lived in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The original cottage, which was the poets home more than a thousand years ago, was destroyed, but the current building dates back to Ming and Qing Dynasties and is dedicated to Du Fu. During the four years he stayed here he composed more than 240 poems that are considered to be precious national treasures. Unfortunately the place was closed, but we got to see some of the area though. It is a beautiful place. The Southwest gate is close to the cottage entrance. The many statues seen in Huan Hua Xi are of poets from the past 2000 years.

Huan Hua Xi Park

Poets Qu Yuan, Li Bai and Du Fu, Huan Hua Xi Park

Poet statues of Huan Hua Xi Park

Huan Hua Xi park covers an area of 32.32 hectares, being Chengdu's biggest park with three gardens, bamboo forest, Huanhua brook and Gan river flowing across it. The park combines modern garden and architecture design, and the historical culture of West Sichuan. Cosplay can also be seen here and many photosessions. During our visit the park had two photosessions going on, one wedding and another one something else. The park has an artificial Green Lake where you can see various kinds of birds, even kingfishers, but we only saw the most common ones and egrets. The park is used as an emergency base in case of earthquakes and offered a lot of free services. We had luck with weathers, every day was sunny and there was no sight of the monsoon rains that hit Kunming. Chengdu has a monsoon-influenced humid subtropical climate with mild and humid weathers. Between July and August the 24-hour daily mean temperature is around 25 °C (77 °F), but during the winter months it gets colder.

Huan Hua Xi Park

Avenue of Poetry, Huan Hua Xi Park

Huan Hua Xi Park

26.7
PANDA BABIES!

On our second day we did what I was expecting the most from the trip in China, seeing the pandas. We were lazy though and only went to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding (成都大熊猫繁育研究基地), or shortly called Chengdu Panda Base, only ten kilometers from the city. The other popular places for seeing pandas are Wolong National Nature Reserve, 150 km from the city, Bifengxia and completed since 2013 the Dujiangyan Base, located 65 km from Chengdu center. There are a few other places, but these are the most popular ones.

The giant panda (大熊猫, Dà xióngmāo, big bear cat) lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan, but also in neighbouring Shaanxi and Gansu. Farming, deforestation and other development has driven the giant panda out of the lowland areas where it once lived. A 2007 report showed 239 pandas living in captivity in China and 27 outside the country. As of December 2014, 49 giant pandas lived in captivity outside China, living in 18 zoos in 13 different countries. Wild population estimates vary, but a 2014 survey counted 1,864 giant pandas. In 2016 the IUCN reclassified the species from "endangered" to "vulnerable".

Pandas in the wild live to about twenty years of age. The oldest panda in captivity, Basi, just died in September 2017 in China at the age of 37 (more than 100 in human years). Basi became somewhat of a celebrity, even living in the San Diego Zoo for six months in 1987. She was rescued in 1984 from a frozen river at four years old. The Sichuan bamboo forest began to flower and die back then, a rare natural phenomenon happening once every 60 to 80 years. This means that Basi might have starved in the wild, as pandas derive most of their nutrition from the shoots and refuse to eat a flower forming bamboo. A mass die-back of bamboo in the ´70s caused the deaths of about 250 pandas, which need more than one species of bamboo to survive.

Finland will get their first two pandas, male Huá Bào and female Jín Bàobào, to the zoo of Ähtäri in one months time and they will most certainly become huge celebrities in our country, because Finns love nature and animals and because another bear, the brown bear, is our national animal along with the whooper swan. I'm not too happy about the idea of bringing the pandas to Finland, but I hope they will live long, happy lives and maybe even reproduce.

Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding

Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding

Bamboo forest at Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding

Movie star Jackie Chan is a panda ambassador

The Panda Base opened at eight o'clock. We arrived there earlier, but got right in. The area has recommended routes you can take to suite your visit best, and a full visit takes three hours or more. We skipped some stuff and mostly focused on the pandas, yet still spent many hours in the area. The base even has a veterinary hospital and a seperate delivery room for the pandas. As a research center The Panda Base does not focus on displaying the animals, so it's up to your luck and visiting time how many pandas you will see.

It didn't take long to find the first panda. It was a lonely one locked inside, walking the same steps over and over like it was in stress. It seemed to want to go outside though, as it went to the door later. The pandas are usually kept inside during the hottest days, so they can cool down in the air conditioned rooms. It was a very hot day on our visit, but as we were so early at the base we could see about twenty pandas! That was way more than I had hoped to see. Some people have only seen a couple of pandas on hot days. You can also see the red pandas at the base. The giant pandas we saw were all ages. They were engaging in various activities; either climbing in trees, playing, eating bamboo in groups outside, scent marking, etc. One panda got frustrated about not being able to go outside and started harassing its mate by playfully biting and pushing the other one around. These guys were hilarious, they even ran! We also saw a cub and its mother, among so many other things.

Bamboo snack time

Pandas can beg for food too!

Paw full of bamboo

The rowdy two. We watched them for an hour!

Young pandas, at least a year and a half of age.

Pandas are generally solitary animals

A mother and a cub at least six months old

Resting after play

The best part was to see the newborn male panda twins born on July 23rd, only four days old! These twins, He Xing and He Sheng, were born to Cheng Gong (born in September, 2000). I had just seen the news about them on TV, but didn't expect to actually see them in front of me! I was in heaven for a while! Our timing was perfect for visiting the center, as the best times to see panda babies are in August and September, and these cubs had just been born! The pandas get their black markings at one or two weeks of age, so these cubs were still pink with just a little fur. The keepers were cleaning them when we saw them. At birth pandas are blind, toothless and quite helpless, so when the other twin fell on its back it was quite hard to turn over on its stomach again, but eventually it managed to do so. He Xing will in the near future live in the Copenhagen zoo together with the female panda Mao Sun (her nickname, originally named Mao Er, also from Chengdu Base) for at least the next ten years for collaborative research between China and Denmark. We might have to go say hi to them again then.

Four days old! The fur color pattern is fully developed one month after birth.

The keeper doing mom's job, cleaning.

I didn't get to hold a panda though. From what we gathered it costs about forty euros to hold a larger panda and at least 350 USD for a few month old cub! You can do volunteer work, but it costs about 1000 USD a week and some never even met a panda! There is also one day volunteer work available for a good fee too. The volunteers we saw didn't seem too happy though, as they mostly clean cages and prepare food. Even though I didn't get to hold a panda I still had a blissful day! As we finished the visit at the base we walked through the Green Lake area, where black swans were plenty. They were like ducks, begging for food, just like the various coloured carps accompanying them.

Goodbye, pandas! These fellows clearly wanted to go outside.

Black swans and carps begging for food

Watch the video of some of the pandas we saw.

The next day we caught a bus towards Mt. Emei (also known as Emeishan), as we had now seen the most important thing in Chengdu, the pandas. The bus ride took about three and a half hours.

About Chengdu