Melanie Fischer

The next morning I had planned for a van to pick us up and drive us to the outskirts of Leshan – a town two hours away which reportedly has the largest Buddha sculpture in the world. Monks carved  this Buddha out of a large rock face. Unfortunately Celia felt sick and got back into bed after breakfast. Her symptoms didn’t seem like Covid – but as Covid is running rampant in China it seemed most likely it was Covid. Unfortunately after much effort I was unable to get my hand on any home tests before leaving Beijing. 

Dan, Morton, and I took the van to see the Buddha. After buying tickets at the gate, we walked a half an hour under these beautiful arched trees along the River to the small mountain where the Buddha is carved. Then we needed to hike up for a path for another 45 minutes. Along the route are all these small buddhas that had been carved into the rock faces and on the other side are beautiful views of the river as we climbed higher. When we got to the top there was an ornate temple/monastery at the height of the Buddha head. It is pretty amazing. After spending some time checking out the top, we then followed another path which took us down to the Buddha’s enormous feet.

We continued hiking along the many paths, coming along beautiful bridges and monasteries. 

 When we were thoroughly exhausted, we found a road and sent our driver our location. He picked us up and we had him drive us into the town of Leshan. Our tour guides didn’t mention the actual town – I think it was too small to be significant – it only has 6.5 million people (!!) but the concierge at the hotel said it was a nice city – definitely worth walking around in. We ended up exploring a lovely area but had a little trouble finding a restaurant that had food without meat that wasn’t too strange. We finally found a little place with three seniors sitting outside making dumplings (zhaozi). They couldn’t understand my Mandarin at all – which was discouraging – but I was finally able to order some mushroom zhaozi for me and some random meat ones for the guys. 

That evening we were too tired to do much. The restaurant in the hotel was closed due to covid and the room service just seemed way too expensive to justify. The restaurants right around the hotel didn’t  look very appealing. We ended up finding a subway (the sandwich shop) near by – Morton’s favorite! He got a sandwich and we bought another for Celia. Dan wandered off to find something else. When I called him he was at a Poppa Johns – the U.S. pizza chain that I have never before been to – nor ever wanted to. But I met Dan there. He had already ordered a vegetable pizza. We sat outside and ate it. It lived up to my expectations. The Pappa Johns was connected to a Dairy Queen. The choices were different than in the U.S. Dan bought a sunday. I think it was also pretty terrible but it was funny to be half way around the world eating at restaurants we know from home. 

Friday I had planned a Sichuan cooking class but since Celia was still sick I postponed it till Sunday. Morton, Dan and I headed out to check out a few neighborhoods where I thought might be interesting to walk around. In the first, around Yulin Road,  we found a bagel shop – we were very surprised. They only sold the bagels as sandwiches – which was disapointing as I thought it’d be great to bring Celia one. Morton got one sandwich and it was surprisingly good. 

We walked through this cute, more affluent neighborhood, then headed over to the Tibetan Quarter and wandered around an interesting market. 

That evening the boys and I went to a Chinese brew pub – which was definitely going for the feel of an American brew pub, ate, drank, and played cards. I was excited to order a salad (not so easy to find at a restaurant here) but a little disappointed that my “Kale Salad” was made with romaine!

The next day Celia, still sick and Morton feeling – not sure if a little sick- or just a little run down. The pool opened, so we spent half the day lounging.

Dan and I then headed out and found a little hole in the wall restaurant on our way to the Chendgu history museum. Food was fine and museum was much better than I expected. Kind of wondering if some of the artifacts were actually real – what they had from so long ago seemed a bit hard to believe to have survived so pristinely. Dan thought that was a crazy idea. I’m not sure – but it was impressive.

The museum was on a large open square with a couple large sculptures that almost look like Olympic torches and a gigantic sculpture of Mao with an outreached saluting arm – felt reminicent of when I went to the Soviet Union many, many years ago.

The next day was Christmas. I delayed both our cooking class until Tuesday – and our departure from Chengdu as Celia was still not feeling well. Chongqing would have to wait until another trip. 

We again spent the morning at the gym and hanging out at the pool. Chengdu is famous for their tea so that afternoon  Dan and I headed out to have tea in The People’s Park. The strolled in the lovely park for a little while and then sat down at a table where everyone was having tea. Most of the patrons had a tea pot on the table on a little fire and they were cooking snacks on the grate that help their tea pot. We ordered some tea but when we tried to order snacks it became clear that we could only order through TikTok. We had no idea you could order TikTok. After downloading the app and failing at figuring out how to order food, I approached a young couple and tried out my Mandarin to ask for help – the snacks looked so cute – it felt like I’d be missing part of the experience without them. The young couple were very sweet and I was excited to have some success with my Mandarin. The woman eventually offered to just order for us on her TikTok account and we just transferred the money to her through WeChat. We sat eating our snacks and drinking our tea until the sun was going down and we were thoroughly freezing.

On the way home we saw a line outside a large window. When we looked in there were an assembly of men making some kind of rolled meat buns and the line was to buy them. We figured this was the place to pick up the kids dinner. 

The next day – Celia was still sick. This was our last day to explore as the following day was the cooking class that I kept postponing so Celia could join, and after that we really had to return to Beijing. Dan bribed Morton to join us on the exploring promising to stop at a mall Dan had seen that had many activities he thought Morton would enjoy. 

We started off at Wangjianglou Pavilion Park. The temples there were not that impressive but the park was beautiful and all the bamboo was really amazing. 

Then we headed to the Wenshu Monastery and wandered back to the hotel, exploring yet another lovely and different neighborhood. Last stop – the mall. Morton was not as excited about it as Dan had expected but he did play a little Claw Machine. 

When we got back to the hotel Celia was feeling better and was hoping to take a taxi to the place we had tea. We bundled up and started to head out to the tea house but then were told the tea house had closed for the evening. The hotel concierge told us of a similar place. The directions led us to a mall. We wandered around the mall with no luck. I finally went into a medical office of some sort in the mall and the woman at the desk pointed me towards the door outside (we were on the fourth floor). We walked out the door at the end of the hall and found ourselves on a terrace with a large tea house. This was a fancier experience than in the park – not quite what we’d hoped for, but we had a nice time.

The next morning we finally made it to the Sichuan Cooking Museum! I had organized a tour guide and a cooking class. Hua, our tour guide (and Hua means flower) took us through the museum, explaining the history of Sichuan cooking, how it changed over time, how the very early advances in irrigation effected their cooking, and the different vessels they developed to cook. It was a little more of a tour than we realized we were walking into, but it was really interesting. She then taught us to make three traditional Sichuan dishes, Baozi (which we made in the shape of panda heads), Mopo Dofu, and Kung Pao Chicken (or vegetables for Celia and I – we still do not know what the vegetable was). It was super fun – a definite highlight was pouring the liquor into the Kung Pao dish and burning it off. 

That evening we explored yet another cute neighborhood on the opposite side of the Anshun Bridge where we had gone out for hot pot. Not very Chinese, but we couldn’t resist a cute Mexican restaurant we came across. We couldn’t remember the last time we’d eaten Mexican and it ended up being really good.

Our last morning we woke and headed back to the Yulin Road where we had found the bagel shop. We got a breakfast of bagel sandwiches and then wandered through the neighborhood before grabbing our belongings, checking out of the Ritz Carlton and flying back to Beijing. Despite Celia having Covid, we had a good trip.

Oh! And if you read this – I’d love to hear from you! I believe the comment section is now functioning.

Sunday the 18th we got up and took a two hour flight to Xi’an. I got us a hotel in the middle of the old, walled in city. I had been to Xi’an with my parents and brothers back in the early 90s. I  just remembered seeing the Terracotta warriors and the large wall surrounding the city. That was enough for me to want to go back. After checking in we walked near the hotel – seeing a number of the big sights of the city: a couple large pagodas and the Muslim neighborhood. We stopped at a famous dumpling shop for a very late lunch and strolled the streets.

The travel guides warned of long lines to get into the restaurant but the place was almost completely empty – as were all the sites and streets. With Covid in full swing in China, everyone was at home – sick with Covid or hiding to avoid getting it. After lunch we continued to wander. Morton found a crazy “claw arcade” – a game shop that only has claw machines.

Morton has amazing skills at this game in the U.S. At this shop the games felt rigged – much harder than in the US but he did win Celia some stuffed creature she wanted.

That evening we found this amazing complex of restaurants and activities – but not a single person there. It’s a strange time – the the economy tanking after being closed for so many years and everyone sick with Covid. Daniel and Morton jumped on an indoor basketball court to play – but were told it was closed. Seemed very odd. We found an empty roller-disco/pool hall. The guy there turned on the disco lights and Chinese disco music for us. I couldn’t get the kids to roller skate with me but the boys and I played a game of pool. I want to make sure it’s in the record that I crushed them – I’d like to attribute it to all that practicing with Anita and Chris last year – but most likely it was just a lucky night.

The next morning we ate early in the hotel and then went to see the Terracotta warriors. Our tour guide was great. Sadly she said there hadn’t had any tours in three years.

When I went to see the warriors in the 90s there was just one pit that was being excavated. Now there are three – though none of them are close to completion. It was as amazing as I remembered – and great to see it again as my memory was mostly foggy. The massiveness – even with only a small portion excavated – is still truly amazing. Each soldier is unique – representing supposedly an actual person. And the way they are piecing it together is also unbelieveable. Apparently when they unearth the pieces they are very brightly colored but extremely quickly the colors disappear -this is one of the reasons the excavation is going so slowly – they are trying to figure out how to prevent this from happening – but not much luck so far. After the first excavation of warriors they started documenting the pieces quickly so at least in photographs the colors can be preserved. It seems so crazy to imagine The Terracotta Warriors so brightly colored. 

Afterwards the guide wanted to take us to a restaurant to have the local noodles. The character for these noodles required around 54 strokes to write – it’s crazy! I’ve never seen anything like it. Unfortunately when we got to the restaurant, it was closed – she assumed due to Covid. So many places are closed now.

I had read of an area which was supposed to have lots of good snacks and street food so the tour guide decided to take us there. When we got there, there were guards saying the area was closed. She couldn’t believe they could just close off the street with all the shops and food stalls – but it was all closed. Out of desperation we went back to the Muslim area we were at the previous evening. She took us to a more local section of the street and asked people where we could get these famous noodles. We walked for a while and after a bit she was informed the restaurant had shut down. She then found us another noodle house where we ate some kind of hot noodle soup. Not really sure what it was but it was hot and we were so cold so even if they weren’t the famous regional noodles – they were perfect!

After that we went to check out the old city wall. I had heard you can bike on top of it and circle the old city. I was a little surprised when we got there that you have to pay to go on to the wall – not so expensive – but seems a terrible shame that the locals can’t just take advantage of this great place to experience their city. Anyway we went up and rented bikes. It took 1.5-2 hours to bike around. The bikes were pretty terrible – we couldn’t change the seat heights – but we had a really fun time biking around and enjoying the views of the city.

That evening Dan had a couple phone interviews that would make dinner timing difficult and Morton was tired so Celia and I headed out on our own. We caught a taxi to a pretty distant part of the city. We got there and it was beautiful! There were these colorful lanterns and lights on the trees. We wandered around taking it all in. Our tour guide from earlier in the day recommended a restaurant in the area which ended up being very strange. When we got there we thought maybe it was a cat store. There were all these cat sculptures and pictures in the window. Then a young man in a beautiful silk robe with a cat pin and a cat mask peaked out and asked us if we wanted to eat. Inside there were more cat paraphernalia. The food ended up being not great, but it was interesting. 

Afterwards Celia and I went back out and wandered around some more and Celia bought a large ice cream sunday wrapped in a freshly made waffle.

The next morning we headed out to the train station. After a bit of a struggle -first we couldn’t figure out how to use the ticket purchasing machines and then, finding the only open ticket counter, not understanding the agents questions. As a long line was forming behind us, we were lucky that the young man behind us in line spoke a decent amount of English and got us through buying tickets. We got tickets on the high speed train to Chengdu. We were very surprised when we got on and found the train quite full as it was mid day on a Tuesday when everywhere else in China is completely desolate. Very strange. It took us just over three hours to get to Chengdu.

As there are no tourists, the Ritz Carleton was having a crazy deal on their rooms – so we booked ourselves there. We couldn’t believe how beautiful it was when we got here! Because so many people are out with Covid, many parts of the hotel were closed. The gorgous pool- was the most disappointing for us.

After dropping our stuff at the hotel, we jumped on the subway and went to a super cute neighborhood, wandered around and bought some small dishes wandering from stall to stall, tasting this and that, for dinner.

Late that night I woke in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. When I opened the door to the bathroom the toilet lid automatically opened with a light going on inside the bowl. In the middle of the night it gave me quite a fright! 

The next morning we woke to an impressive Ritz Carleton breakfast spread. Then we drove out to one of the Giant Panda reserves. Chengdu is famous for its pandas. We had a lovely morning wandering around checking out the super cute pandas. They are either feasting on bamboo, dropping bamboo residue all over their bellies, or they are sleeping. Seem like a nice life. We all want one as a pet.

After the Panda preserve, we found a vegan restaurant somewhere in downtown Chengdu. It was very strange. It was in a mall that was almost completely vacant. There was nothing else on the entire floor that wasn’t empty. The escalators were wrapped in plastic. We assumed the restaurant must no longer exist but saw one light on down the hall. When we got to the lit area we walked into this lovely restaurant. Again, it was very strange,  but we had a nice lunch.

That evening I had a taxi take us to another neighborhood I had read about. He dropped us at a bridge that was so beautiful.

On the bridge is a Micheline star restaurant – which looked lovely but we weren’t dressed for it – but it was also almost completely empty – so sad to see. We wandered along the river’s edge. Most of the places were kareoke bars which were empty. I was feeling a bit discouraged about finding a place we wanted to eat when Celia and I peaked into a hole in the wall. The woman working in this tiny restaurant talked us into staying with our minimal ability to communicate .  The restaurant was quite small – just a few tables. One family at a table tried to help us negotiate food. We eventually sat at a small square wood slat table on wooden benches. The food was hot pot – with a hole in the middle of the table with a gas burner in it. This is the specialty of Sichuan – the region we were in. The woman running the place put a large pot into the hole and then a small circular pot in the middle of it. She put ingredients in them both, then added water, to make broth. One was non spicy and the other was supposed to be just a tiny bit of spice. Then we ordered vegetables (and later meat for morton) to put into the boiling broths. I couldn’t bear anything that came out of the spicy broth -but it was a super fun activity and  a man from one of the two other tables and his young son – joined us for a while – which made it all the more fun. The son was a 3rd grader and although shy, his english was definitely better than his father’s or better than any of our Mandarin. It was a great evening.