Spring Festival 2011-part 6--Chengdu

We've made it to Chengdu, home of Sichuan cooking and pandas!  As Spring Festival continues, the lanterns come out.  Made entirely out of paper, these will be used for the 15th and last day of Spring Festival.

A 50-foot tall buddha.  You can either pay 80 yuan to walk along it or see it from across the river like we did for free!

As we watched the Buddha from across the river, we also watched this brat repeatedly throw garbage into the river as his parents sat by passively.  A little punk, we almost wanted to throw him in.

Pandas are among the pride of Chengdu, and are everywhere, including on cigarette cartons.  As Annie was thrilled by anything pandas, she had to get the picture.

The "red panda".  This little guy doesn't get as much attention as the traditional panda, but is still lovable.

Annie finally getting to see the pandas up close.  They say every year 1 person dies from jumping the fence and trying to hug a panda.  We almost bet this year it would be Annie.

We went to the panda conservatory around feeding time to watch the guys recline and munch on bamboo.

In style with vacation, kick back like this guy!

They may be cuddly, but they aren't always the most nimble.  It took this guy about 7 minutes to get out.

Also belonging to the the animals in Chengdu is this psycho puppy, biting and molesting everything he can reach--deceptively cute.

Spicy sichuan dumplings!  Awesome!  We were regulars in our short time there.

Sichuan opera with elaborate costumes and makeup.

Also at the performance was a hand shadow master.  Here he's showing an owl.

We also took the time to visit the monasteries around Chengdu.  Being on the border to Tibet, there's a heavy Buddhist influence.  And one night we stayed in the monastery, rising early to watch the monks at morning prayer.  The best part, however, was walking through a quiet monastery at night and hearing one monk going through ring tones for her cell phone.  The table pictured here features candles purchased by visitors and dedicated to loved ones and ancestors. 

Eating is important in Sichuan; we followed our travel book's recommendation to a popular restaurant, which was, unfortunately, closed.  However, just beside it were these two restaurants.  This was the definition of rivaling neighbors.  EVERY passer-by was hawked at from both restaurants "You hungry?  Come in!  Great food!"  The woman in blue here was the most vicious--like a feisty rottweiler preying on unsuspecting pedestrians to tempt them into eating.

Between temple visits, we stopped at an arcade, of course.  Rambo!  We mastered the game...after about 40 coins worth of continuing.  We gunned down enemies, blew up helicopters, and saved our comrades from exploding buildings. 

As hotel stays typically go, we met others staying in the hostel and shared a few beers together.  Here, we played "Ring of Fire" where every time you get an 8, you introduce a new rule.  After enough 8's, the rules add  up and included spinning around 3 times while being a moose before taking a drink.

And we finished in a Tibeten restaurant trying a variety of new foods.  The sausage and vegetable dishes were fantastic, but the butter tea was, well, a little hard to swallow as Annie shows here.