Chengdu by Night

The Chinese city of Chengdu provided ample opportunities for photos, and this series is of night-time pictures. The statue of Mao on the square in front of the Sichuan Institute of Science and Technology was definitely a centerpiece of the city. But the recent growth is very noticeable, with many of the newer buildings dwarfing structures from previous times.

This fountain was on the same square as Mao, and actually has a partner fountain as well, the two circular objects forming a Ying-Yang design to the entire square. Below the fountain is an entry to the metro which was under construction and not open.

This was an advertisement by a real-estate office. Just the scale of it was eye catching.

These fountains were also on the square looked over by Mao. At this particular moment, the fountains were spraying in unison and accompanied by amplified orchestral music of Chinese songs. Once again, very impressive just because of the sheer scale of it. My favorite part was when some of the fountain jets started rotating, unexpectedly getting onlookers wet!

My last evening in Chengdu I had the chance to go to a performance by the "Sichuan Opera" which is a theatrical production that highlights several aspects of local theatrical tradition. This picture is of the "mask-changers" whose main action on stage was simply changing their masks or costumes, but at lightning speed, without it being clear how this was actually achieved. It really seemed to happen within the blink of an eye.

This is one of the sung portions of the program, a courtship story.

This is one of the closing acts of the Sichuan Opera performance.



The tower on the right (the darker one) is the Sheraton Lido Hotel where I stayed.

Chengdu by Day

This past week I had the opportunity to spend some days in Chengdu, China, thanks to the generosity of a friend who works for an airline. Chengdu is a city of 11 million people, and is the capital of the Sichuan Province in south western China, just in the neighborhood of Tibet. The picture above is a statue of Mao in front of the Science and Technology Institute.
This gate was the entrance to the street where the Wenshu Temple complex was.
Further down by the actual entrance of the Temple was a little street market where I managed to find a Chinese musical instrument that is made of a gourd, but with three recorder-like extensions coming out of it.
This was part of what was described to me as the "trendy shopping area" of Chengdu. My travel buddy who sees much more of the world on a regular basis than I do informed me that Shanghai and Hong Kong are much more like this than Chengdu. One could find here lots of name brands usually heading in the direction of expensive.

This pedestrian overpass was also in the "trendy shopping area."


This stadium in the middle of the city was actually the view from the hotel room.

Having been in other capital cities (Paris, London, Washington, Bangkok, Nairobi) I think Chengdu is actually the largest city I've been in to date. This is more an indicator of the size of the population of China than anything else. Beijing apparently has 18 million. These numbers are also similar to South American megalopolises, where I also have not been to date.

Despite the sheer size of the city, Chengdu actually seemed rather peaceful most of the time. This was probably helped by the broad 8-lane streets, with 2 lanes for bicycles and pedestrians on each side. The geographical area of the city did not seem overwhelmingly large either. We rented bicycles one day and covered a fair amount of territory.

One thing I had to adjust to was the scooter traffic in the bicycle lanes. They were just so much more silent than what I'm used to; it always seemed like a surprise when one went rushing past , because it wasn't usually noticed before that.

This will be the first of a few blog entries about the whole trip, so keep your eyes open for more in the near future!