Chengdu, Capital of Sichuan province 23- 26th October

Sichuan is what we know as Szechuan. It is officially Sichuan but is commonly known as Szechuan elsewhere in the world. 

Chengdu – who knew!

Chengdu had the worlds first paper money. Jiaozi was a form of promissory note which appeared around the 11th century here in the Sichuan capital of Chengdu. Numismatists regard it as the first paper money in history, a development of the Chinese Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE).

Whole Sichuan pepper seeds are the weirdest thing I’ve ever eaten! Forget about your first experience of the ingenious popping candy! (Bowood, nr Chippenham) Sichuan peppercorns are horrible and totally awesome at the same time. They also randomly and mildly repeat the sensation hours later like a tuna, onion and cucumber sandwich but with an electrifying kick! The problem was that I was freaked out by it because I didn’t know what I was eating. I took a photo of the nasty like thing, which I thought must be some relation to the stinging nettle or some sort of bug that stings you as it dies under the pressure of being crunched by your teeth in amongst the ‘pork’ and peanut concoction we were eating. But I thought it must be edible as it’s being served to me in a restaurant. However, as you get older you question things rather than just accepting everything. I am referring to those sticky weeds that we used to think were such fun as children because they ‘stuck’ to you and anyone you threw them at. Well now in my late 50’s my mind magnifies those little ‘sticky’ bits and sees great big claws digging in to my skin! (Or hooked barbs as they are called!)

Anyway, I digress (as always) I’ve just read….”Why do Sichuan people love spicy foods? Because Sichuan province has a high humidity and there are many rainy days. (We can confirm that!) Pepper can help people reduce internal humidity, and chili can help people do the detoxification in the body through foods therapeutic method.” (For ‘foods therapeutic method’ I read diarrhoea!)

I’m not sure what ‘internal humidity’ is but if it’s like a hot flush maybe Sichuan pepper can help menopausal women. Sophie suggested I look for local ‘cures’ for menopausal symptoms as we travelled to different countries. I must admit I hadn’t given it any thought until now. I think that the strange electric shock type sensation from the Sichuan pepper seeds would just take your mind off any ‘internal humidity’ you were experiencing. Wink.

There has been a good quality and variety of street food here. However there was, as always, lots of things we wouldn’t eat, like Snails, Frogs (on sticks of course!) Pigs brains and snouts, whole little Birds (which is why you don’t see or hear many birds here maybe!?), Rabbits heads, but the only ‘meat’ on them I could see were the eyes, the rest was bone and long sharp rounded teeth, it was the same for the Duck heads… just bone!

Frogs! I hate to think where the heads are….. we enjoyed those dumplings too!

Chicken combs! Again, “waste not want not” as my dear old Nans used to say.

Really!? So disrespectful I thought.

There were some nice desserts though, we ate these.

On a different subject, everyone seems to stand around cutting their nails here. Mostly finger nails but a young guy in the train station had his sock off cleaning underneath his toe nails! Sat right by me! Charming

We’ve seen people doing it on their food stall or in the doorway of a restaurant’ no one seems to be put off. It was the same in Vietnam, I remember the lady sat clipping her nails whilst sat surrounded by tubs of food, like I said back then, nails always ping off in all directions, some are bound to have gone in to the food! Women also sat around the food picking nits out of each other’s hair.

I’ve just read that In 2010, Chengdu became the second UNESCO City of Gastronomy. My immediate thought was how lucky we are to have travelled here to see the famous endangered black and white bears but have inadvertently come to a city with world class food. What a bonus. Of course taste in food is subjective and we are not too partial to rabbit heads, frogs, brains, snails and the sensation you could also get from putting your tongue on a car battery!
Oh and my second thought was where is the first UNESCO City of Gastronomy? Well is was Tucson in America apparently.

It’s raining here but it doesn’t stop the street food stalls serving breakfast or the locals sitting under an awning eating it! And all of the contraptions we’ve seen on bikes lately are now coming in to their own. Whose’s laughing now! If they haven’t got one of these they often ride along holding an umbrella!

OK, so since moaning about the few hot Sichuan peppercorns in our meal the other night we have just returned from a ‘hot pot’ restaurant. The restaurant was extremely popular, which is always a good sign. It was full when we arrived at 7.30pm and there was already a queue of people waiting. We were given a ticket and waited too. 45 minutes later we were seated and had no idea where to start! With the translation app we managed to order a ‘slightly spicy soup’ option from the menu and random food items to cook in it. We love spicy food and Glen was hoping it was going to be spicy enough seeing as it said ‘slightly’…… holy cow! it was ridiculously hot. Just look at how many chillis and Sichuan peppercorns there were! They emptied a whole bag of dried chillis in to it! The bag would last us a year back home!

The following day….. You know it’s going to be a good day when you get up at the crack of dawn (before dawn actually) and your husband voiceclips the grandchildren to say “were going on a bear hunt” then looks out of the window and says to me “it’s not raining and the lady across the road has her buns out” He was referring to the lady with the food stall opposite our hotel. We were leaving very early to travel to see the Panda bears having their breakfast and wanted to take some pork (I use the word loosely) buns for our own breakfast on the way.

These three Panda’s had been play fighting for quite some time and I had been videoing them. The moment I stopped the wooden ‘bridge’ collapsed and two of them fell to the ground in a heap. The crowd gasped loudly and I swore! Another lightening display missed!

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There were also these little fellers, Red Panda’s

I realise that a lot of our younger readers won’t appreciate the significance of our visit to see Pandas in China. Others may remember seeing the news of Chia Chia and Ching Ching who were sent over from China to London in the early 1970’s.

What they may have heard of is the film ‘Kung Fu Panda’, the famous animated panda movie. The inspiration for the backdrops of the film was from the ‘Wide and Narrow Alleys’ apparently, an area in Chengdu where we also visited. We need to watch that film with the children when we get back!

After we had our fill of Pandas, whether 2 days old, 2 weeks old or 2 years upwards we went to Tianfu Square, the Peoples Park, and the Wide and Narrow Alleys areas.
As well as a lot of different food, hearty communal singing and fabulous random dancing, the one thing that stood out everywhere was the amount of ear cleaning going on! There has also been a lot of massage businesses and fish ‘feet cleaning’ places, but none have been so busy and well utilised as the ear cleaners. This is clearly very popular!

Now I could write about all of the areas we visited in Chengdu but the blog is already too long. I think I will just tell you about the ear cleaners. (‘Wax Wallahs’ as I referred to them in my head! Chuckle)

Now I don’t know what your thoughts are on this, and I won’t go into our own habits but I will tell you that the Doctor once told us that you shouldn’t put anything smaller than your elbow in to your ears! i.e. nothing should be put in to your ears! So we were surprised to see that people seemed happy to not only have someone with a whole handful of sharp sticks similar to the old metal skewers that used to be around when we were little. (what happened to those I wonder!) Where was I? Oh yes, not only to have some stranger poke sharpe objects into your ear but to pay for the privilege. Some ‘professionals’ had a little area sectioned off (we could still see them!) but other ‘travelling’ ear cleaners would come to you, even if you were sat in a cafe next to people eating! And as they removed big bits and bobs from your ear they would put it on your chest! Presumably so you knew it was worth paying them to clean your ears. Now me, being the sceptical sort wondered if they had these ‘bits and bobs’ already in their hand. Because instead of being pleased to see these, presumably pieces of wax, coming out of me, I would wonder if in fact they should be left where they were! One guy must have been deaf before it was removed from his ear because he had quite a pile on his shoulder at one point!

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OK I will finish on toilets. There was a long queue for the ladies the other day, longer than usual. There was one western toilet and all the others were squat toilets. (It tells you, by means of an illustration on the door, more often than not) The western cubicle was empty so I used it, which meant I jumped the queue as no one else wanted to go in there! It was very clean, it had paper seat covers and a ‘control panel’! It included water flow controls for the bidet, an oscillation option, and a MASSAGE button! They don’t know what they are missing I thought. So I’m not sure whether if you pressed the massage button a part came out of the toilet and massaged you or a masseuse would come through a panel in the cubical, either way I decided against finding out! Happy days, chuckle.