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Chengdu, China

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Today I visited downtown Chengdu. I took a taxi to the Xintonghui hotel, because hotels seem to be places taxi drivers can find reliably when you point to them on the map. The taxi driver pretended not to speak any English util we had negotiated the price. Obvioulsy I overpaid but compared to European taxis it was not expensive: 80 Yuan, around 8 Euros, for a 10km ride. I recorded a GPS track (since people agreed that the GPS could be used in big cities). This is the Huanhua Brook. Wonder who’s eating the fish that is caught here.

A house above a Wehr.

I visited the Songxianqiao Art City, an area full of small shops that offer all kinds of Chinese art, like these vases. There were also shops selling jade bracelets and amulets and wood carvings.

Several shops sold supplies for Calligraphy. I bought two small brushes, but I think I should have gotten a big one as a souvenir as well. Though I saw several post offices and mail bboxes, I have yet to find a place where I can buy postcards, however.

This is one of the temple halls at the Taoist temple district of Qingyang. There were signs saying that photography is not permitted, but none of the Chinese visitors heeded them. Maybe they just referred to the insides of the temples. The Taoists seem to have an awful lot of goddesses and holy people. There were about 10 of these buildings on the premises, most of which contained statues of two or more important figures, none of them duplicates.

They made a lot of effort to describe everything in detail (there also were a few English signs).

This Pagoda contained a golden statue of Laozi (pronounced Lao dssse), riding a green bull toward the mountains in the West (whatever that means).

Walking on towards the Qintai Road.

Qintai Road is full of richly decorated buildings, most of which contain jewellery shops or expensive-looking restaurants.

It is the closest thing to a pedestrian zone I have seen so far.

Approaching the Tiangfu ('Heavenly Paradise') square in the centre of the town.

There were some kinds of fountains on the square, but they were not activated. Maybe they switch them on only at night, because they had lots of lamps installed in them.

It is a pity that the haze prevented me from seeing the tops of the skyscrapers clearly.

Many people had photos taken of themselves in front of the Mao statue.

These columns, two on each side of the square, explained the 4500 year long history of the region of Sichuan and city of Chengdu (even in English, else I wouldn’t know).

If there wasn’t so much smog (I guess it’s smog?), you’d have a wonderful view down the Renmin Road (the people’s road), the main traffic axis leading south from the Tianfu square. Astonishingly, the air quality doesn’t feel (smell) as bad as it probably is.

All the main Western clothes designers have a shop on the Renmin road.

This is the Jinjiang River, which was described as wonderful and beautiful on one of the few English signs... that must have been in a different universe.

...but at least the bridge was decorated with a dragon’s head.

The road was split into different lanes by rows of trees. There is a lot of green throughout the city.

New skyscrapers are built in many places. They advertise the nice view from the upper floors, but if you can’t see the top properly from the street, then you can’t view the streets from the top, either, can you?

I finished my tour in the Chengdu Bookworm, where I had an ice chocolate, a cheeseburger (delicious!) and some Jasmine tea, before I took a taxi back to the Chengdu University of Technology (paying only 26 Yuan this time). This is the main entrance of the Campus.

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