We enjoyed a few days in Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province. We arrived at 5am having arranged a free pick up from the station by our hostel but we couldnt find them anywhere so eventually got a taxi to our hostel. As we had arrived so early, our beds werent ready for us so the guy at the hostel suggested that we went on the the tour that left at 7.30am to see the pandas at the famous panda breeding centre in Chengdu. So despite having had very little sleep, we joined the tour and head off to see the pandas! It was lovely to see the pandas up close and we areeived at feeding time so we actually got to see them in action rather than lazing around or sleeping which is what they normally do! They looked so sweet and had a really lovely environment to live in, i didnt feel as bad about them as i normally do about zoos! We even got to see a tiny baby one which was in an incubator, it had no fur and could hardly open its eyes it was tiny!

We were at the panda centre for most of the morning and when we eventualy got back to the hostel we had naps and chilled out for the rest of the day. In the evening we headed out for some dinner and sampled the famous sichuan hotpot which was really really spicy! The staff couldnt speak any english and we had lots of fun trying to order our food which included me being dragged around the restaurant, into the kitchen to pick stuff we wanted to cook in our hotpot, it was loads of fun. The hotpot arrived on our table and after a while of just sitting there looking at it, the staff eventaully got us organised and wer had a really lovely meal! one half of the hot pot was really extra spicy with loads of chillies and spicy stuff in it. The other half was a tamer version which we could actually eat quite a bit of! It was a really good experience despite my mouth going numb with the spice and feeling quite sick afterwards as my stomach found it hard to cope with. Surprisingly i didnt suffer too mcuh the next day !!

The next ay we wandered around the city (for hours!) and did amange to find a really nice temple, the famous mao statue (they still really love that dude!) and spent some time exploring the peoples park unitl it started pouring wiht rain so we headed abck to the hostel! We left Chengdu on Tuesday morning by bus as we were heading on a boat tour to the yangzi river for 3 days. Chengdu was a lovely city and the food was excellent.