Chengdu Culture Shock

I had culture shock in Shanghai and I noticed instantly when reuniting with Mike and the kids in Chengdu (they flew there with teacher Carrie from Sanya and I flew there from Shanghai) that Mike had culture shock in Chengdu for the same reasons. It is hard to adjust to a modern city after being in a tier 3 city like Sanya, and Chengdu is only tier 2 not even a tier 1 city (Shanghai and Beijing).

Nevertheless, we had a fun time in Chengdu and stayed at a beautiful hotel, the Intercontinental, and hired a car and driver all day for our stay, our teacher Carrie was with us so translation was easy, and the weather was perfect. We went to the Chengdu Panda Breeding Center and saw lots of pandas in their habitats (transportation inside the vast park was sorely missed), saw very old beautiful temples, ate delicious Sichuan food (the spicy food), and I even had a business meeting at Ubisoft's Chengdu studio. Here are all the photos. I was previously unaware of the red panda, that looked more like a big raccoon to me than a typical panda. The kids now have panda fever and everything is about pandas.

Oh, and our flight home was delayed two hours, after my two prior flights were each delayed two hours, and I'm sick of Chinese air travel already. But the happy news is that Annie Fifer and her daughter Sophie have arrived in Sanya for a week and we are going to see them later today!!