touring the city

We saw some new sights across Chengdu today.

The first stop was Hejiang Ting (2 Rivers Pavilion). There, two rivers come together to form the Min River, which is a major tributary of the Yangtze. These rivers are the reason that Chengdu is located here (reminds of Pittsburgh). And not unlike Pittsburgh, these rivers are also now badly polluted due to decades of industrial contamination. A real shame!

On the bright side, though, we did see some fishermen - and one decent size fish that was caught! (but now I'm going to try to remain blissfully ignorant of the local restaurants' sources of seafood).






Moving on, we stopped at Chunxi Lu, which is the name of a street and a major upscale shopping area. The purpose of our trip was not to shop, though - but we did take a few pictures.


One very interesting shot was of a statue of Sun Yatsen, the founder of the Republic of China following the fall of the last dynasty. He was a spiritual guy and certainly a sign of China's past - which makes it all the more odd to see him memorialized in the midst of this commercial center in modern China. (Yes, that is a sign for Haagen-Dazs and a Nike billboard dwarfing his statue. Go figure.)
Our next stop was TIanfu Square, in the very heart of Chengdu. They have some great fountains and sculptures there - it reminds me of Chicago's Millennium Park, in some ways. And like everywhere in the city, there are lots of people around!

Here's a video, so you can see the square for yourself.

All in all, this was a fun day! It is refreshing to get into the city and see some more sights. I hope we will have time to get into the city and explore on our own more often in the future. (And now that Rachel knows where the good shopping district is, I know we will be back to these places as well!)

-alan