My Dreams have been realized!

On the weekend of March 13-15 I went to Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province with Jenny and Daniel. It was like Italy all over again! If you don't know, Sichuan is where the Panda Research Base is, as well as the home of 麻辣, a special spice they use in Sichuanese food. I was so excited a bout seeing the pandas, REAL LIVE PANDAS, in a semi-natural environment, not behind a glass wall.

When we first got to Chengdu we went to the main temple there and walked around a bit, it was definitely made into a tourist destination because the walking areas looked so new. Even some of the buildings looked fake authentic. Inside the temple grounds it was so peaceful and beautiful, and blocked all sounds of construction and traffic jams outside. Eventually we got hungry, but it was too early to eat dinner, so we checked out a restaurant that looked pretty busy and had the spice in the dishes. I ordered some spicy wontons, and I was so surprised once I started eating! Basically..I kept eating, and I didn't think it was traditional spicy kind of taste. I slowly began to realize that I couldn't quite feel my tongue anymore, and the spice had a pine taste to it..it also made everything taste much saltier. I believe the english translation is Szechuan food, but this was nothing like that, and unlike anything I've ever tasted before. Maybe not my fondest eating adventure, but I enjoyed it and if was cool to try something new. Afterwards we sat in a teahouse for awhile to get hungry again so we could go to Chen's Mapo Tofu for dinner. I LOVE mapo tofu, and this place is the number one restaurant to go to in Chengdu. Needless to say, I was pretty excited. We ordered two bowls which turned out to be too much, along with some other small dishes. In contrast to my expectation of Sichuan spicy food from before, the Mapo Tofu tasted more like what I expected. The spiciness was kicked up a notch, and it was cooked with more oil than my mom uses. But I still loved it! And it was super cheap. The three of payed about 2USD each for our fulfilling dinner!

The next day we woke up early to get to the Panda Research Base around 9-10, so we could catch them at feeding time. We had one hour since we got a deal with the taxi driver to drive us from the research base back to the city. I was running around everywhere like a crazy woman so I could see all of the pandas! I loved seeing the pandas munching on bamboo..looking all lazy. Wow..that's the life. What was even better is that they had great jungle gym type structures and I swear the red pandas could have jumped out at us. There were even peacocks, and we saw one on the sidewalk. I'm pretty sure it had escaped somehow, haha. Before I knew it, my panda adventure was over, but I took plenty of pictures.

Another highlight of the trip? THE BUFFET BREAKFAST! Just in case you didn't notice, I love traveling and eating the local food, etc. But the buffet breakfast had everything and I took full advantage of it. They offered everything from dumplings to waffles to tons of fresh fruit. Mmmm...