Jinli Pedestrian Street, Chengdu, China
Jinli pedestrian Street, Changdu, Sichuan,ChinaTrip
Bowl of beef tendons
We went to Bejing first, and then to Xian. Our third stop was Changdu where our itinerary included a trip to the Panda Sanctuary, and Emi mountain. This involved an overnight stay in the area, which really meant two days and one night. These visits to the Panda Sanctuary as well as to the Emi mountain, we were informed, involved a lot of walking with 1000 steps of hiking up and down to the mountain. We were tired and thought that it would be a difficult undertaking. And after real soul searching and assessing the situation we decided to ask our tour guide to arrange for us to stay behind in Changdu. Magie, our tour guide said that it was against the policy of the tour company that they leave behind some members of the group, but said she would try to explain to them the circumstances. She obviously didn’t have any difficulty in negotiating our stay in Changdu with her tour company. While rest of the group continued on with the scheduled trip, we stayed on in Chungdu.
Around 11:am we left the hotel by taxi to go Jinli Street, which was part of the itinerary if we were to be part of the group on the way back from the Emi Mountain. Jilni is an ancient, pedestrian street which is a highly recommended tourist area. Even though it was a rainy morning, the street was very crowded. When we entered the street, the first place we spotted was Starbuck. We had our second breakfast with a large cup of coffee and really enjoyed it. It was raining fairly hard, so we stayed inside and watched people walking with umbrellas. It was very interesting to see almost everyone had a colorful umbrella, and it seemed like an organized umbrella parade. We could see umbrellas from the window where we were sitting in Starbuck.With all the colorful umbrella it was a sight to behold. Stunning colors were similar to the one in this image.
Colorful Umbrellas, stock photo
We decided to go out when we saw that all the umbrellas had disappeared.
The stalls along both sides of the streets carried souvenirs, arts and craft, and most of all a great variety of local cuisine. Chinese have mastered the art of cooking and eating. The choice of food was incredible. In one place there was a huge bowl of ox tendon. You could buy a portion in a leak proof bag as a single serving. It was delicious and very reasonable. There was a large mouthwatering variety of snacks available but making a choice and finding out about the dishes without speaking Chinese was a herculean task. At one of the stalls we were standing looking and deliberating what to get, when a nice young Chinese lady who spoke perfect English approached us and asked if she could help. With her help we ended up buying sticky rice buns; spicy delicious beef wrapped in banana leaves, and crispy beef rolls packed in plastic bags. Each plastic bag contained 3 rolls. Everything was delicious and rolls were crispy, light and tasty.
The interesting part of the street was how people were strolling in a leisurely, relaxed and peaceful fashion down the narrow street eating, shopping and having a good time with their families. We spend four hours of most pleasurable time on Jinli Street.
When we came out to go back to our hotel it was hard to find a taxi because of the language barrier. There were some young kids standing there, and they came over and wanted to know if they can help. Although they did not speak English, they managed to understand that we wanted to get a taxi. With full enthusiasm they offered to help and got us a taxi and explained to the driver where we wanted to go by showing him the hotel card we gave them. They were a great help and were very polite and caring.
We came to the hotel and relaxed for the afternoon. Then we decided to go out shopping, after which we had our dinner in a fast food restaurant. We were back in our hotel room by 9:30, and ready for an early night.
We had one more day before our group came back. We explored the city. Shopping in the nearby mall was relaxing and interesting because we found stores which carried a lot of American brand names. We bought some sweaters and jackets at very reasonable prices. we also had our lunch at the mall. It was easy to pick up what we wanted to eat. There were lot of dishes with which we are very familiar, and are in our normal culinary repertoire at home.
Walking back to the hotel, we found a fast food restaurant a few doors away from the hotel. The food was served in bowls. We got KungPao chicken and rice which was delicious.
Jinli Pedestrian Street, Chengdu, China Recipe
By Published: December 13, 2018
Jinli pedestrian Street, Changdu, Sichuan,ChinaTrip Bowl of beef …
