We just left Chengdu in Sichuan province. Now the entire family wants to move there (except yours truly).
It’s no wonder. Chengdu has everything one could hope to have in one city. Lots of good food, and lots of places to shop. The boys loved being able to go to Toys-R-Us, JP loved shopping at IKEA (the boys, not so much). We all enjoyed visiting the second largest building on earth (behind Dubai’s airport), and wanted to go play at the indoor water park, with fake beach, but didn’t due to lack of time and finances. We did, however, enjoy the Mexican food and Baskin-Robbins.
We visited a foreign dentist, where some x-rays, one baby tooth extraction, a cleaning, and examinations for 6 cost $150. We went to a grocery store, and bought things we can’t get in our city such as snacks and pepperoni for our homemade pizza.
Most of our money went to food: the above mentioned Mexican food and Baskin-Robbins, plus McDonald’s, Burger King, and Dairy Queen.
It was fun just seeing how much stuff is available in Chengdu. IMAX theaters, shopping mall after shopping shopping mall with lots of nice stuff, and English language bookstores, to name a few.
JP was very surprised at how friendly the people were, such as when the baby dropped a sock, someone would immediately bend over to pick it up for her. There were lots of smiles, and people were very helpful when we needed to ask questions.
Even leaving the city provided a few surprises. We were headed to the train station when we came upon a wedding train. In China, the bride and groom are videotaped being driven around the city in the nicest cars they can find (usually rich friends’ cars). Mom, dad and other family and friends are in the other cars to make up the train. I noticed this particular train because there were four black Mercedes-Benz lined up behind a black Maserati which was behind a black Rolls Royce. I guess if you’re going to get married in a fancy city like Chengdu, you might as well do it in style.
(Photo by Yuanpei Hua on Unsplash)