Being famous for such diverse things as spicy food, pandas and gorgeous mountain lakes, the Sichuan province is a very popular tourist destination among many Asians.  We have always been a big fan of Sichuan restaurants in Singapore and were keen to verify their authenticity for ourselves!

Together with Yang Ke’s mum we took a direct flight to Chengdu from Wuxi’s own airport and installed ourselves in a very cute apartment discovered on airbnb

How by fate the apartment was in proximity of a popular food street – first stop of our city tour
The street’s architecture is inspired from previous dynasties and there is some interesting street art, but all of this is just a pretext for the real highlight: The Food.

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The great advantage of these street markets is that food comes in snack-size portions, allowing you to savor a wider range of options. Nevertheless we barely got to the middle of the street before being full and were forced to switch to other activities. But no worry, Chengdu has loads of impressive sights to fill your time between lunch and dinner.

Jinsha, a massive archaeological site of the ancient Shu kingdom (around 1000 years BC) has only recently been discovered. A part of the original site and many of its very well preserved artifacts (lots of ivory and gold) can be visited in a modern museum, which also includes a large and quiet park.

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After so much culture it was time for a food break. A friend of Yang Ke’s mum invited us to a posh Hotpot restaurant (ShuJiuXiang), another famous specialty of Sichuan.

Whats makes Sichuan spiciness so particular is the devilish combination of spicy chili and mouth-numbing pepper, called MaLa in Chinese (mouth-numbing spicy), which assures you a high body temperature even in the coldest winter.
After receiving the hotpot-broth filled to the brim with chilies and peppers, we took out a whole bowl of those before even daring to try a spoon. Of course it remained very spicy, which we had to cool down with sour plum juice.

The main reason for many to come to Chengdu are the cute and chubby pandas, native to Sichuan province and surrounding area.
The best way to experience them is with a visit to the large panda breeding and research base in Chengdu, giving birth to around 100 pandas every year. It is a large zoo-like area with separate outdoor camps for different aged pandas and indoor facilities to get a glimpse at newborns and babies. Some of the areas for adult pandas are pretty large and the lazy pandas can be difficult to spot, but there are also lots of smaller spaces where the less camera shy ones spend hours munching on their favorite bamboos. As bamboo is quite low on energy, pandas have to spend half of the day eating, while sitting on their fat butt and will spend the rest mostly napping or slowly strolling around.

The pandas have quite different characters, some being more shy and individual, others more playful and curious. They seem usually rather lazy, dosing in trees after eating  but you can also spot some playing with each other

Next up was (you guessed it) more food! You would think that after one food street you have seen it all and everything else will just be copies of the same things, but not in Chengdu!
We ventured to another popular food street and spent another dinner just snacking from one stall to the next.

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My favorite sweet snack is this delicious pineapple rice combo:

Another cultural highlight of Chengdu is the temple of WuHou, a royal advisor called ZhugeLiang who is considered the embodiment of intelligence and wisdom in China. He lived during the Three Kingdom period, a very dramatic era which still inspires many movies and TV dramas.

A worthwhile day trip is the visit of the ancient town of HuangLongXi (Yellow Dragon River), a pretty little historic town of the Qing dynasty (1700 years old), named after the river flowing through it. In summer it must be an even more charming place to meet and drink tea in one of its many small streets.

We concluded our visit with the highlight for Yang Ke and her mum, the transformation into a beautiful opera singer.
At the backstage of an actual Sichuan opera house you get to choose your preferred figure among a huge selection, from little princess to funny clowns and serious generals.

Most of the time goes to the makeup, creating the very expressive face through many layers

The one hour waiting is definitely worthwhile when you see the results: