Lucinda Duncalfe
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Lucinda
Bromwyn
​Duncalfe

Longtime entrepreneur/CEO, director, coach
Mom, c
ook, now a farmer
Native New Yorker
​#LymeDisease, #autism

Saturday 11/27 to Chengdu, pandas, and a hot pot

11/28/2010

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I got up at 5, finished packing, checked out, ate breakfast, and took a quick and easy taxi ride to the airport. Not much traffic early saturday mornings. Checking in was uneventful, a welcome change from my last domestic flight to Lhasa. I met Claire at the gate and we boarded on time. Unfortunately we then sat in the plane for over an hour before take-off. After that it was an easy flight.
We took a taxi into town. Im staying a the Shangri-La, one of the best in town. Four people checked me in (literally, two people behind the counter, the bellhop standing next to me with my bag, and a guest relations person standing by me too, for no apparent reason), and two escorted me to my very nice but not huge upgraded room. There was a very nice bowl of fruit waiting.
If I didnt know that there was a huge earthquake here just three years ago, I would never guess it. Theres a huge statue of Mao in the main square here, and theres a joke that a traveller going by wondered why Mao was waving. Only a resilient people can make jokes about an event that killed 68,000.
We left immediately for Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. For visitors, its a very nice panda-only zoo with almost 100 pandas (both giant and red) in mostly decent natural habitats. You can get really close to them and we even saw 7 babies about 3 months old, but werent allowed to take photos of them. The only odd thing was that there were almost no children there, it was all adults. I was an attraction again, with my photo taken with/by a Chinese tourist but at least they asked. I should have gotten a photo too, but I didnt think of it until it was too late.
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Young adult giant panda having lunch
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Red Panda
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Feeding a swan fish food - it put most of my hand in its mouth!
After the Panda Base we strolled around a rebuilt traditional Sichuan area, Kuai Zhai Lane. Among other things, it has the nicest Starbucks Ive seen anywhere.
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Yet another Starbucks
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View from Starbucks second floor
We bought some souvenirs at the panda shop (Claire is crazy about them), then took off in a light rain for a traditional Sichuan hot pot dinner at Huang Cheng ao Ma on Qintai Road. Its a hugely popular local place.
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We had our own tiny room and ordered a long list of things to cook on our own personal hot pot (a combination of broth with peppers, spcices etc.). You put your own food in, let it cook for a while and fish it out into a bowl of sesame oil with tons of garlic in it. It might not sound great, but it is absolutely delicious. 

​By then we were exhausted and went back to our hotels (the locals stay in the local hotels when we travel together).
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