Si Chuan, China Trip 2012 - Part 8

Day 9 - 25th Dec 2012

Mask

Today, we are going to walk around Chengdu by ourselves. So we got up slightly late (not very late too..hohohho), and got ready to go down for breakfast. It is buffet breakfast, and have cornflakes too..finally got cornflakes to eat...After breakfast, we went back to our room to take our bag and set off. We went to take metro down to Jin Sha Ruins Museum, but when we came out of the metro station, we still have a quite a distance to the museum (and it is not very near...). Finally we reached the museum entrance and bought the tickets (RMB$80 each...). Then we went in to explore the place, there were 5 halls, contained all the artifacts dug out from the site. They had preserved the whole site and let it for public display. There also had videos giving introduction on how it was first found and as they dug, the more artifacts they discovered. We even went for a 4D show, showing the life of the Jin Shan people's life (Can feel the snakes crawling very fast on your butt and can feel an arrow strike on your back...). The 4D show is RMB$20 per person...a bit exp...After that, we walked to another area to see the site where the artifacts are dug out from. We stayed there until 3 plus, then we went to buy admission tickets for the next place - Du Fu Thatched Cottage (RMB$60 each). Suppose there is a free ride between 3 places if you purchase the tickets for the 3 places (which is Jin Sha Ruins Museum, Du Fu Thatched Cottage and Wu Hou Ci Memorial Temple..didn't managed to visit the 3rd place as not enough time), so we expect there is a free ride to the cottage. Instead the lady from the museum told us that the free bus is not operating now as there was road construction going on, so she took us to a bus stop and take their public transport FOC to the cottage. She didn't take with us, she told us to alight after 4 or 5 stops. Luckily the alighting bus stop is near to the cottage entrance.

Du Fu Thatched Cottage

And so, we went to explore the house of Du Fu. The place was also big, spent an hour or so exploring the place. There was a 4 storey high tower inside, i climbed up to 2nd storey and took some photos. When i came down, my friend was nowhere to be found. So i tried to search for her around the area..Gosh..i walked in and out the tower and even climbed up to the 4th level (when i don't have the intention too in the first place). Finally i gave up looking around the tower and walked to another area, there she was...(from far saw her walking at another area..haiz..). She still asked our friends in singapore to send sms to me to meet up at the south gate (already saw her before i saw the sms...kekeke). After done exploring the house, we headed out to Kuan Zhai Alley. We exited at the other gate of the cottage house, and we walked for about 15 mins to the bus stop to take the bus. It was 2 or 3 stops away. But when we alighted, we don't know where to head too...later when asked a passerby where is the alley, she told us it is just opposite the road..the name for the alley is super not easy to see, (unless you know ancient Chinese characters....hohohoho). And so we walked in the alley, there was not much people too....very nice and not squeezing to walk in the alley...We ate some xiao chi as dinner and went back to our hotel after eating..After reaching the hotel, my friend went down to shop around while i stayed in our room to watch tv... kekeke..tv time!!

Day 10 - 26th Dec 2012

Schwarze Ziege

Today, woke up at around 8 plus to get ready for breakfast. After breakfast, we made our way to the bus stop to Qing Yang Gong (青羊宫）. It was 4 or 5 stops away from our hotel, and it stopped at the bus stop opposite the temple...Quite convenient compared to taking their metro.....Apparently the places of interest are near to bus stops, rather to metro stations...And when we reached, we still need to pay an entrance fee of RMB$10 to go in (A Taoist just sat outside and issues the tickets..). The Taoist temple is the oldest and biggest of its kind in the area, located in the west of downtown. While it has a long history, the buildings are modern, cheaply-made concrete constructions, and it quite frequently shows. The statues inside are also cheap modern constructions of no real interest.All the things inside are very old, and the place is super big. There were  a lot of gods inside, and there was an animal statue (shown on the left). It was made up from a small part of the 12 zodiac animals'. (Can you figure out?) We spent about half a day exploring the temple, saw a Taoist washing her super long hair too....really super long (going to touch the ground)...And there was a place for tea too, at the back of the temple. After exploring the temple, we set off out for lunch..hungry...We decided to go back to Chun Xi Road, after finding out the original place we wanted to go had closed. But along the journey back, we alighted at Tong Hui Men Road and went to walk at a street (Qin Tai Lu) where the whole street was filled with gold jewellery shops. After walking for a while, we decided to go into a restaurant there - Tanyoto....MaLa Steamboat time.....

MaLa Huo Guo

We went in and ordered steamboat with mala and tomato soup based...and ordered a fish head, mixtures of balls (got pork, cuttlefish and prawns), lotus root, cucumber, a duck (cold dish) and got a free side dish (corn..don't know what is it called...but still nice to eat..hahaha). We waited for some time before all the food came...The fish head was divided into 2 and boiled in both the soups (i took the mala and my friend took the tomato....). Wah!! The mala is super super ma....cannot tahan...When i ate the fish, my tongue was ma...until cannot talk already...hahhaa..i almost wanted to cry out....really cannot tahan...I told my friend to put all the rest of the food into the tomato-based soup...Cannot eat any more with the food in mala....We spent 2 or 3 hours for this meal..hahaha....Super full after eating....Then we slowly made our way back to Chun Xi Road for shopping (snacks and souvenirs time....). We went back to hotel room to rest for awhile first..then we went down to shop around and bought souvenirs (panda items) and snacks back...After bringing back the stuffs back to the hotel, we went down again to buy some food back...heavy lunch...can't even eat proper dinner...Bought alot of snacks again in the supermarket...kekeke...We had instant noodles for dinner and my friend bought a few yogurts back to try...after that, we went back to hotel to make our noodles...ahh..the instant noodles also oily and no taste..plain plain de...kekkee...Then is back to tv and ipad's time...night night!


Stay tune for the last day's journey in Chengdu..... ^_^

Places visited:
1. Jin Sha Ruins Museum
2. Du Fu Thatched Cottage
3. Kuan Zhai Alley
4. Qing Yang Gong
5. Qin Tai Lu
6. Chun Xi Road

Hotel Stayed:
Haiyatt Hotel