china trip - Chengdu

The city we stayed in the longest was Chengdu. This town is roughly the size of Los Angeles and a central hub for lots of fun things. From here we got our train to Tibet, got buses to Leshan (and the largest Buddha in the world), Qingcheng Mountain, and lots of great food stuffs!

Here are some cool shots of Chengdu:


This was my first breakfast in mainland China. It cost me about 75 cents, and yes, that IS a tasty robin egg hiding the corner of my bowl there.


This was our hostel we stayed in. It was located in the middle of a posh outdoor mall, which made for a fun atmosphere when we walked home late at night.


Sam is lambasted with his new Taoist dragon friend.


We saw this awesome gate when we were walking around the city one day. The crazy part is that there is stuff like this everywhere.


Chengdu has over 12 million people in it, and most of them live in apartment buildings like this or over there shops like this:


Some cool Chinese buildings.


1. Sam talks to person in Chinese
2. Person understands about 1/2 of what Sam says
3. Sam shows them our Lonely Planet guide
4. Person tells us where to go (or where we are)
5. Sam cracks a funny joke about being a cool American who lives in China
6. Person smiles and tells his Mandarin is okay, but to improve it he should live in Chengdu and marry a Chinese girl.

(This process repeated itself no less than 4 times in this city.)