15. - 19. august

Our journey continued to Chengdu, a city so green it almost felt alive. Ivy climbed the bridges ten meters high, as if the jungle itself had decided to reclaim the concrete.

This is also the city of the giant panda, and honestly, it’s completely panda-infested. Everywhere you turn, pandas on mugs, T-shirts, bags, chopsticks. On buildings, trash cans, in the metro - Everywhere! It was almost ridiculous, but how could you not love a city that is so in love with such a big clumsy cute being?
(NB: because of some issues with the photo-syncing here in China, I dont have any panda-infested photos to show you)

We, of course, had to visit the famous Panda Research Center for Giant panda breeding, where we got to see both giant pandas and red pandas up close. We fell head over heels. The red panda especially — one of the most beautiful, magical little creatures we’ve ever seen. And knowing that the animals here are actually well taken cared for, not just displayed, felt good. We’ve made a conscious choice not to visit zoos on this trip, so this was something different.

If pandas were the highlight, the hotel breakfast was the opposite. The worst we’ve ever had. No water, no juice, no vegetables. Just fried, yellow food on old plastic plates in a room with ash trays and mold. After that, we started hacking our mornings: buying yogurt and muesli and keeping them in the fridge in our room. Having our own breakfast in the room turned out to be one of the best decisions.

In Chengdu we also began school and work for real. It feels grounding to get into that rhythm. This is the life we’re stepping into, balancing everyday life with adventure. What is a weekday, what is holiday, when you live like this?

We had wonderful walks around the city. It’s truly a rich city with many hidden gems like food markets. A lot of super nice areas for shopping, restaurants, bars etc. Highly recommended city to go to.

We had a couple of stormy nights with thunder and lightning, and a sudden rainfall that took us by surprise. What a joy!

So wet, but everyone seemed well prepared for sudden rainfall

Back home we had planned to go on to Huangshan mountains after Chengdu. This would take us 10 hours with speed train and an other bus to a small mountain village. People kept saying: “If you haven’t seen Huangshan, you haven’t seen mountains.” Maybe that’s true. Bt we also heard roumers that it would be packed with tourists. And HEY, we are Norwegians — the idea of standing in line up a mountain is simply not happening. So we chose differently.

And we’re glad we did.

Chengdu, a jungle city hit by a panda spell.

Finding balance in Xi’an