Wednesday - Chengdu

ZUFE had Friday off because it was the Tomb Sweeping Holiday. Sounded like a good time for a trip to Chengdu. Kris and Jim graciously covered my Thursday classes so Cynthia and I were able to fly to Chengdu on Wednesday after our classes. That extra day made all the difference in the world. Kris and Jim took advantage of the extra day too and on Friday they flew to Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors.

For dinner, we had a “taxi card” (translate that to a business card with English for me and Chinese for the Taxi driver) from “Peter’s Tex-Mex Restaurant” that Kris and Jim recommended from their Spring Festival trip in Chengdu. So that night we had a delicious and fairly close to a real Tex-Mex meal. Bean dip, salsa, chips, quesadillas, enchiladas and a great frozen margarita. Believe it or not the owner and cook was Chinese, but he still did great Tex-Mex. We taxied back to the hotel for a nice sleep on a typical Chinese hard mattress. Our Chengdu hotel was in a great location close to a walking/shopping street, which had lots of high-end stores and even a Dairy Queen. Actually for 35 dollars (308 Yuan) a night, the hotel was really nice but they lacked enough stars to get CNN on the TV. They were also very accommodating to all types of customers, they actually had posted hourly rates and “protection” available by your bedside.

Here are the Chengdu Pictures
http://picasaweb.google.com/katiea48/Chengdu