I start the solo portion of my trip today! My mom flew back to Vancouver and I’m flying to Chengdu to see pandas. I’m a might nervous and a lot excited to be traveling alone in a country where most of the people don’t speak English, nor do I speak Mandarin. It’ll be fun trying to communicate without my mom as interpreter.
You’d think that Chengdu would be more rural or wild, compared to the densely populated eastern half of China that I just spent 10 days traipsing through, but that would be wrong.
My preconceived notions were blown apart when I started doing research on Chengdu during my trip planning.
Check out these facts from this video on Chengdu:
* Chengdu is the 4th largest city in China with 14M (after Shanghai, Beijing and Chongqing).
* The name means “country of heaven”, due to its livability and carefree lifestyle.
* Home to 219 fortune 500 global enterprises, of which 171 are regional HQs or operational hubs.
* Known as the Silicon Valley of China. Intel, IBM, Dell, Cisco, Microsoft, SAP, GE, Lenovo and Symantec all have set up their R&D or outsourcing facilities in Chengdu.
* Declared by UNESCO in 2010 to be a city of gastronomy.
* LA times described Chengdu as China’s party city.
Who knew? I love a good surprise.
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