Was in Chengdu recently for business, but because the hotel was a good 40min away from town, only had time on the first day when we arrived to look-see. The hotel concierge suggested that we head to Jin Li Jie (Jin Li Street) which is an area with narrow ancient streets and traditional buildings.
Everything about it screamed "tourist trap" to us, but we still decided to be good natured about it since it was already late afternoon, and we could grab dinner there as well.
The area itself is not very large, taking at most 15min to complete if you speed walk. We obviously took much longer, pausing to enjoy the stores selling a variety of traditional goods lining the streets.
A few traditional craftsmen were plying their trade, including this guy which created beautiful animal figures out of an edible sweet.
You could stop at the teahouses along the way, and try their noodles (warning: extremely hot with lots of chili oil!!)...
... or try the more interesting grilled meats along a Xiao Chi Jie ("Little eats street"). There thankfully wasn't anything as exciting as what I showed in my post on Beijing, but Sichuan food is either 1) VERY VERY spicy, or 2) VERY VERY oily, or worse of all 3) BOTH!
There were some really pretty areas to walk around, this path led up to a museum of sorts where you could view some historical relics.
You could also purchase one of the red hanging items, and hang it up to make a wish (quite like the Japanese?). If you wanted, you could also dress up in the traditional Chinese costumes and take a photo under it.
The place gets much more exciting at night when the lanterns are lit up. There are lots of restaurants for you to choose from as well, most feature some kind of traditional performance during the dinner as well. (more on that in the next post!)
No comments:
Post a Comment