Adventures of a Texas Girl in China: Chengdu, Sichuan, PRC

Thursday, April 7, 2011

There is a haze as I look out the window of the hotel to survey Chengdu from the 22^nd floor. Our view is of a vast area under construction and in the distance the toll booths for a highway I am not sure where it actually is. This is clearly an area under expansion. The city of Chengdu appears to be composed of several expansion areas that have occurred over time.

You have the city center which is within First Ring Road. This would be old Chengdu. The historical places of interest tend to be in this area. This is where I traveled today. From the hotel, it was CNY 46 for the taxi ride to my destination. I will discuss where I went a bit later.

The next expansion is defined by Second Ring Road. It is the area between First Ring Road and Second Ring Road. There are places to see here that were in the country side in ‘the olden days’. By olden days I mean between early AD to the early to mid 1900’s.

Then… want to guess what the next divider is… you got it… Third Ring Road. The places of interest in the area are mostly restaurants that are highly recommended and the Panda Reserve.

Fourth Ring Road has not been defined yet, but our hotel is outside of the Third. We are in an area that is commonly referred to as Century City. It is the high tech area. That would also explain the construction boom currently underway here.

I must apologize for omitting the snaps of the lobby from yesterday’s post. I knew I would have a large number of pictures to share from this outing, so I had planned to upload them to a common site such as Flicker. However, not exactly sure what is going on, but I cannot upload anything to this site. The upload continues to faile regardless of whether it is one at a time or multiples. It is rather tedious for my daughter to do pictures in the blog, but unfortunately that is how this is going to have to go. I will select a few pictures of each of the places I go and continue to work on the upload to Flicker later.

Here are a few pictures of the lobby and surroundings at the hotel.

Figure 1 -Lobby cafe and the Tea House in the background

Figure 2 - Front Desk and entrance to convention center

Figure 3 Restaurant in complex, but not run by hotel

Figure 4 Re-creation of street scene behind the hotel lobby

Now… back to my expedition to inside the First Ring Road. I tried to pick something that I could enjoy on my own. I chose to visit Jinli Street which just happens to be close to the Temple of Marquis Wu or also known as WuHou Monastery.

Jinli Street is really a restored alley way or really is a series of connected alley ways that have been restored. It is very charming and very old China feeling. The sense of wandering in a maze is there… however there are modern establishments, such as Starbuck’s and Dairy Queen… and toilets.

I should stop for a minute and talk about the toilets. I meant to discuss this in the last post, but got wrapped up in the discussion of the hotel décor. Well, for those of us that are a bit older and heavier and stiffer… the toilets were not designed with us in mind. I opened the door my first visit (at the airport) to the ladies room and almost fell over. The Chengdu ladies room for all purposes looks like any other… until you open the stall door. They are outfitted with ‘squat pots’. The ones I saw looked like this… there is a 4-6” raised platform and in the center… A ceramic rectangular bowl and on each side is has porcelain ears… or rather slip proof grids that you put your feet in … to literally squat down. Sorry I don’t have a picture… there was never a time that no one else was there and out of respect; I opted not to snap a picture. But I have gone to the internet for you. Here are a couple of examples: The one on the right is pretty accurate… at least you get the idea…

Now… this is how we girls had to potty when camping or out in the woods behind a tree… I never expected to have to relive that at this age. I am totally panicked!! About 3 weeks before we left for Shanghai, I fell at home and injured my knee. I cannot fully bend it without pain and it is very weak. Kneeling is not an option either as it cannot bear the pressure or weight. I am thinking I am in real trouble here. Fortunately, there is one potty in the place for the disabled that is a conventional western potty. Boy was I relieved to see that… however this would only be the first of many encounters with the squat pots.

Back to my day… This street is more like what we westerners envision China to be architecturally. It had narrow streets with street vendors lining both sides of the alley, restaurants, shops, and walk up snack vendors with every imaginable Sichuan snack available.