Chengdu, China
For somewhere so vast, modern and developed, Chengdu has a calmness to it. Life feels slower. People are open, warm and generous with their time. You’ll find huge, glossy shopping malls, but also quiet teahouses, shaded streets and small pockets of tradition tucked into the middle of it all. It’s a city of contrasts in the best way.
Chengdu won my heart completely. I came home and immediately started looking at jobs there quite seriously. It left that kind of impression. I felt at ease almost straight away, which surprised me for a city of that scale so far from home.
We arrived by high-speed rail from Chongqing. It’s not far by Chinese standards, but the difference was immediate. Chengdu felt more spacious, more relaxed. The roads are wide, often arranged in rings around the city centre and getting around by taxi is easy and very affordable.
It really does feel like Chengdu has everything—history, creativity, tradition and a young, energetic culture that keeps things moving forward. And then there’s the food, which was all my spice addict heart wished it to be.
On our first afternoon, we wandered through Kuan Zhai Alley, picking up gifts and strolling with family. That evening, we went to a traditional Sichuan opera performance. I’m usually cautious about calling anything “once in a lifetime” but this came close. Sitting there, watching the face-changing and the precision of the performance, I had a moment of real gratitude to be able to witness this beauty half way across the world. It felt very special.
The rest of the trip settled into a rhythm of shopping (which, honestly, is excellent in China), eating and spending time with family. One day we went to Eastern Memory Suburb, a former industrial site turned into a creative hub of shops, cafés and galleries. It had a completely different energy. I found a shop selling fragrances and completely lost control. The scents were an incredible blend of tea, wood, earth and Chinese florals. Affordable as they were, with an exceptional quality, I bought enough to last a lifetime.
Food was a constant highlight. Sichuan cuisine is everything you want it to be. There were six of us, which meant we could order widely and try a bit of everything at each meal, which is always the best way to eat. Huge sharing plates of spicy chicken with sour peppers, 甜水面, bright red chilli sauces with soft pork. I was in actual heaven.
You can’t come to Chengdu and not visit the pandas. We went out to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, which feels surreal in itself. They really do look like little people, so expressive it is almost unreal. It was too hot when we went so they were mostly indoors, which just gives me a good excuse to come back in a cooler season.
One of the most memorable moments came in a teahouse, through a connection of a family friend who had been introducing us to tea culture throughout the trip. We spent the afternoon tasting different teas, including one made from Sichuan peppercorn leaves. It was only afterwards that I realised just how high quality (and expensive) the tea had been. She didn’t charge us. Instead, she took all six of us out for hotpot that evening, easily the best we had on the trip. It was an incredibly generous and sincere gesture.
Chengdu felt different to anywhere else I’ve been. It had that rare quality of feeling both new and familiar at the same time. Maybe I will live there one day. Or maybe I’ll just keep finding reasons to go back.
