Hey friends,
a few days have gone by and I had the chance to take my camera with me and explore the city. What I really experienced in Chengdu is the low amount of foreigners you see here - compared to like Shanghai or Beijing. Whether you walk through shopping malls, take the subway or walk around the most crowded places, there are really not many out here! Which makes you kind of unique to the locals and therefore often receive a lot of attention. People sometimes stare at you, kids hide behind their parents I guess because they might feel a little uncertain or the complete opposite - people come to you and ask for pictures haha.
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I had this one experience in the subway where I was standing in front of a little girl with her mother. She barely dared to look into my eyes but after a while, her mother started talking to us and said that she thinks we are really cute and she wants a picture with us (me and my friend I was spending my day with) - haha, so cute!
Chengdu
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Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province and located in the are of central China. It´s surrounded by a belt of mountains which gives Chengdu that kind of valley status - which influences the weather here quite significantly! There is not much wind here at all, just a small breeze here and there, which is really enjoyable for me though! Especially at this time of the year, people are enjoying the warm weather and slight breeze while enjoying their cup of tea or coffee.
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Chengdu is probably most known for... hot pot and pandas! The locals here eat hot pot all year long - even if it's like 35 degrees Celsius outside, which is not really something I see me doing in summer here haha, I will stick more to cold noodles or my own food. Extremely hot and spicy whilst already sweating - puh. But maybe that´s due to my cultural background so no hate, please.
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As you can see in this picture, they really do love their pandas! That shot was taken at the IFS shopping mall, which is in the Chunxi Road and TaiKooLi area in the center of Chengdu. IFS stands for International Finance Square which also includes big office buildings next to that huge, awesome looking shopping mall. If you go there someday, don´t forget to take the elevator to the shopping mall rooftop and taking a picture of the panda that nearly made it over the edge!
Along with the crazy development Chengdu has been going through the last couple years, including setting up 7 subway lines and a very modern city center, the people here are generally very friendly and very chilled! Even better if you can say the most basic stuff in Chinese! Make sure to learn how to say hello and thanks in Chinese and they already love you haha.
If you want to know more about Chengdu or my daily life here, just leave your questions in the comments and I will come back to them as soon as possible!
Cheers,
Daniel
丹奕