Before traveling to Chengdu, I spent my last morning in Chongqing visiting a park with another view of the city. It was green and beautiful, but by the time I left, it was also very hot. I was hoping Chengdu would be a bit cooler!

For lunch, I went to a restaurant that a friend of mine had recommended. She didn’t have a location pin for the restaurant, so I followed her directions and her picture as best I could. The restaurant I ended up at had mostly outdoor seating, so I sat down next to a local guy. I asked the lady to make my food with very little spice, but it was still overbearingly spicy. She did not give me Guangdong style barely spicy. So I ordered a 冰粉 (bingfen) which is a cold sweet soup that is supposed to help cut the spice. I would eat a few bites of noodles and then cool my mouth off with a few spoonfuls of bingfen.

In Chengdu, my friend, Shepard, picked me up from the train station and took me to a nice park where he liked to ride bikes. We walked around a bit and then he took me out for hamburgers. These were even better than Burger King! After dinner, we rode bikes for a bit on the 100-km trail that goes all through Chengdu. The path reminded me a bit of Indian Creek Trail where my family would ride bikes growing up. Such good times!

On my second day in Chengdu, I learned that the hotel had a washing machine!!! I was thrilled. I decided I could use a bit of a relaxing morning, so I stayed at the hotel and washed all my clothes and called my friend. By the time I finished with my laundry, I was pretty hungry since I had only had some snacks for breakfast. I didn’t know what to eat, but I had pretty good experiences so far with food, so I wasn’t too worried. The hotel seemed bigger than my last one, so I didn’t ask the reception people for advice about food (that was a bad choice).

I thought about ordering delivery, but when I saw some food that looked good, I realized that it wasn’t too far away, so I could just walk there. Fifteen minutes later, I was outside of a deserted mall with stairs leading down to a sketchy-looking basement. The only people going up and down the stairs were delivery guys. That’s when I started to get worried. I’d heard about places who only did delivery and weren’t very sanitary, and I wondered if that was what this was going to be. I headed down into the basement, and my fears were confirmed. There was no place to sit. A few tables stood haphazardly around the basement area with shops along the walls where people cooked the food in places that didn’t seem to be very clean. A few chairs were thrown around, but most of the chairs were not next to the tables. Someone reclined in one of the chairs and seemed to be sleeping.

I didn’t even see the shop I was looking for, but I gave up at this point. Everyone who noticed me was giving me weird looks again, but most people just ignored me. Delivery guys were glued to their phones and the chefs were glued to their pots. And the person reclining in the chair was glued to the back of their eyelids.

At this point, I was very hungry, and I still didn’t know what to do for lunch. I decided to head back the way I had come because I had seen some restaurants along the way. The first one I came to looked fine—like a normal little shop. I sat down and ordered fried rice. That was not the best idea because I almost never have fried rice that I enjoy through the entire giant plate of rice. This one was no different, especially since it had spam—I’m not a fan of spam. I ate as much as I could and then decided to go to the Chengdu museum since it wasn’t too far away, and I wanted to go somewhere before my friend arrived in the afternoon.

I got a cold drink on the way since Chengdu was also very hot. The locals called it a 火炉 (huolu; a stove). But the museum would be air conditioned if I could just make it inside!

The museum was free, but when I got inside, I saw that I could buy an English audio guide for about 40 kuai. I decided it would probably be more interesting if I did that, and I’m glad I did!

I wandered slowly through the museum listening to descriptions of the various artifacts that had been discovered in tombs near Chengdu. There was a wooden boat for taking the dead to the afterlife and lots of pottery figurines with musical instruments also discovered in tombs.

A miniature reproduction of a silkworm bazaar in March showed what a silkworm bazaar may have looked like during the Song Dynasty in Chengdu. Apparently, the city would hold different bazaars throughout the year for people from surrounding areas to come in and sell their products.

The museum had some things about Sanxingdui which was north of Chengdu. I wanted to go visit, but it’s a bit far from the city, and the tickets are limited. So I satisfied myself by learning a bit about it in the Chengdu Museum. I also saw some information about 都江堰 (Dujiangyan) which is another famous place near Chengdu. Jaye and I were planning to go visit Dujiangyan tomorrow, so I was excited to learn a bit about the place before I went.

Another interesting area of the museum was the section that talked about Sichuan culture including food, tea, and clothes. Miniature cartoons showed people in tea houses talking and drinking tea.

Jaye arrived earlier than I expected, so by the time I finished at the museum, she was ready to head out. She suggested that we meet at a tea house near our hotel and watch some Sichuan opera. That sounded great to me! After learning about the importance of Sichuan opera and tea in the local culture, I was excited to experience it for myself in a modern setting!

I was very hungry again, so we bought some sunflower seeds and yogurt at a little shop near our tea house. Jaye also made some hot tea and brought it since our tickets didn’t include tea. So we got the full experience.

This Sichuan opera was one of my highlights from my time in Chengdu. The performers looked like my college students, and I was happy and surprised that young people were taking the time to learn traditional cultural skills and then they were able to share them with us. After the show, I asked one of the performers how they had learned, and he said that they had mostly learned through self-study. I was even more impressed.

The show combined many different elements of Sichuan opera. We started off with some Sichuan dialect tongue twisters. I was super impressed that he could say them so quickly and so perfectly. I didn’t understand anything he said and when I looked at Jaye she also shook her head. She couldn’t really understand either.

The second show was a girl singing and dancing. This one was impressive and seemed very traditional, but it wasn’t my style quite as much.

Next, one of my favorite parts were a guy and a girl each doing a dance with a teapot that had a long spout. I’d seen these tea pots before in Guangzhou when I went to a Sichuanese hot pot restaurant. The waiters like to have fun with them as they pour your tea. One time, one of them even let me try it out. But these two people were incredible, and I loved watching them throw the teapot around, twirl it around their heads and their backs and finally pour the water into the nearby cups.

The next performance was a guy in a very glittery outfit doing all kinds of choreographed movement with some kind of yoyo. He bounced the yoyo around on a string, spinning and tossing and catching it in an impressive display of his skill.

Next we had tongue twister guy back as some kind of a clown and the Sichuan opera girl back and they did a skit where the opera girl made the clown do all kinds of things while balancing a small dish with a flame in it on his head.

The next one was another of my favorites. Yoyo guy was back with an impressive shadow puppet display. Since we were sitting on the side, we could see him as he used his hands, arms, and sometimes his head to create different animals on the screen. He was very good.

The last show was another highlight as three different characters came out in elaborate costumes and did the face changing dances. The could change the face masks so quickly that I could never quite tell how they changed. Often, they would put their face behind the fan, but when they revealed their face again, it still had the same mask. Just when you were wondering what they were playing at, they would nod their head and the mask was suddenly different, leaving the audience wondering when and how they had changed. I was enthralled.

Where can you watch Sichuan Opera in Chengdu?

If you are in Chengdu and are interested in seeing this same Sichuan opera, I highly recommend it! Here’s the info:

Name and location: 锦秀戏冠·川剧变脸·吐火·盖碗茶(春熙路店)
走马街55号友谊广场A座3层附3号（3楼人行天桥入口或1楼电梯）

You can find it on 大众点评 (Dazhong dianping)

Hope you enjoy!

To finish out the wonderful day, Jaye and I walked around the nearby walking street, enjoyed peaking our heads into fun little shops and smelling all of the wonderful spices that filled the streets. Hot pot and spicy peppers were for sale everywhere, and even though I’m sad that we didn’t try hot pot, I loved enjoyed all of the delicious smells.