Things to do in/around Chengdu, reccommended by Haba Yefei
Things to do in/around Chengdu, reccommended by Haba Yefei
1. Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Base
A must see place in Chengdu.
Best time for visiting: from 8am to 11:30am when they are enjoying their breakfest and most active in the day.
Best season: Pandas dislike warm temperature, from June to Augest the temperature are too warm for them,so it’s not a good time to visit. Good season is from December to May of the next year when the cubs are 3 months to 8 months old,only during this season you can see the most cute and active panda cubs.
Note: Pandas are only born during July to September
2. Qingcheng Back Mountain
Different from the well known and over touristy Qingcheng Front Mountain, the Qingcheng Back Mountain is a very peaceful and relaxing mountain, 70 km west to Chengdu. It’s my favorite mountain around Chengdu,with beautiful forest,clean stream,pretty waterfall,peaceful
Temples and quiet villages.And it’s closed to the Panda Nature Inhabitancy.
3. Sichuan Local Food
Sichuan food is the best in China with diversity of flavor. If you love spicy food,Chengdu will not disppoint you. Should eat in a local restaurant, the hotpot in Shujiuxiang Restaurant(蜀九香) is my favorate, avoid eating in Jinli Street or any other touristy place,the food there are horrible.
4. Ya’an Bifengxia
The Ya’an Bifengxia Panda Breeding Base is located in a beautiful mountain with very pretty valley, waterfall and forest. Do not miss the wonderful hike in the valley(takes one hour)!
5. Leshan Giant Buddha
It may take a couple of hours to queue in a long line in the mountain where the buddha located,so taking a boat to admire the buddha is another good option.And you can have a best
view of the whole Buddha in the boat.
6. People’s Park
If you want to see the real local life in Chengdu go to People’s Park, where you can see how people enjoy their leisure, Chinese traditional dancing,Tibetan Dancing,singing, tea house,ear massage,and most funny is the fashion show by the ordinary people who are doing the catwalk on the red carpet! Don't miss the BLIND DATE CORNER,where people hang on the papers on trees writing their own or their Childern's personal detail including age,job,gender,height,personal finance situation. Come on you single guy,
find your wife/husband the day when visiting the People's Park! Hahaa
Best time to go there is 2pm to 4:30pm when people are taking activities in the park.
7. Qingyanggong Taoist Temple
Sichuan is the birth place of Taoism,and the Qingyanggong is one of the Olddest Taoist Temple in China.The Chinese Traditional architectures built 300-500 years ago are still in good shape.
8. Sichuan Opera
Only little sing in the show,it’s more like a play with face-mask changing,fire spiting,shadow and puppetry. Time is 8pm-9:30pm
9. Emei Mountain
It’s one of the 4 sacred Buddhist Mountain in China,also a site of UNESO World Culture Heritage.
The over touristy and crowded Golden Summit and Wannian Temple are not reccommended.
The scenery in the Emei actually are not that special,and most of the days there are quite foggy and wet,so you may quite possible seeing nothing in the mountain but temples. For the people who are interested in Buddhist temple strongly recommend:
Take a bus to Wuxianggong from the Baoguosi(20min),then hike down from the Wuxianggong to Fuhu Temple(伏虎寺), the 10 km hiking takes about 3 hours.The scenery on the way is quite pretty,and you will see many over 400 years old big buddhist temples on the way without many tourists. Another advantage to do this hiking is that you don’t need to pay for the 150 Yuan entrance tickets to the mountain.
10. Ya’an Shangli Old Town
The old town is on a high mountain surrounded by rivers,it is located at the gate way to Tibet. 25 km away from the Bifengxia,it’s a great conbination to visit the Bifengxia and the Shangli Old Town in one day. The 300 years old Han’s Mansion in the town is worthy for a visit.
So an ideal itinerary could be like below:
Day 1,Visit the Panda breeding Center in the morning,and Qingyanggong and People’s Park in the afternoon,with Sichuan Opera in the evening after a dinner in a Sichuan local restaurant.
Day 2, Hike in the Qingcheng Mountain
Day 3, Visit the Leshan Giant Buddha and the Emei Mountain
Day 4, Ya’an Bifengxia in the Moning and Shangli Old Town
