First impressions of China

Admittedly, it's only been one day... but if the first day is any indication, we're quite impressed.

This is not the communist China that we learned about in school 50 years ago, where everybody is poor and the government owns everything... although that may be the impression many people still have. 

And again, this is only the first day, and only in one city... Chengdu. 

The entrance to the breakfast room at our hotel.

Monday was a bit of relaxing day for us, although we did get out for a walk for a few hours to a park and temple complex a few kms away, and then we took the metro back because it ended up quite warm.

Most people live in these huge apartment complexes.

Looking back up the other way.

I had to download two important Chinese apps to my phone... Alipay, and Wechat. Both of these are mainly payment apps, although they do other things as well. You use these apps to pay for pretty much everything. China is a totally cashless society now, and although some cash is still accepted for some things, everybody prefers to use their phones and the apps... both customers and merchants.

More apartment buildings.

Made it to the park.

As I said yesterday, many signs include some English.

Man made waterfall in the park.

Quite a few girls were all done up getting photos taken.

You could even walk behind the waterfall.

Lotus flowers.

While we sat and took a break, this big bug landed on Ruth's foot and made her jump!

Pedestrian bridge.

Old pagoda building.

More lotus flowers.

Yes, they even have an "emergency toilet" in the park!

No idea how that differs from a normal toilet! However, there are a lot of public toilets around and they are free, relatively clean, and even have a mix of Asian and western toilets. Quite a change from Kyrgyzstan.

An old pavilion.

The inside is nicely decorated.

Don't forget to look up!

Bet you can't guess what this is?

They are all over the place... rechargeable power banks for rent. You use your Alipay app on your phone to scan a QR code and release a power bank to recharge your phone. When you're done, you slide it back into a slot at any other location... and there are hundreds of locations. You rarely have to go 100 meters without seeing one.

We visited a temple complex.

And we were surprised to find that anybody over 60 gets in totally free by showing any type of ID... residents and foreigners alike! Just had to show our drivers license and we were waived in. And apparently this is the case with many attractions here.

This is a Taoist temple.

Beautiful structure.

Another temple... there are probably a dozen in the complex.

Lots of incense burning going on.

This temple was decorated with various monkey statues.

Tea pot fountain.

There are a lot of odd statues.

As I said earlier, it started to get quite warm so we decided to take the metro back to the hotel. The metro system in Chengdu consists of 18 lines. Everything spotlessly clean, and inexpensive... the maximum charge is about $2.50 CAD ($1.75 USD), but many shorter trips go through at under a dollar.

Heading back to the hotel.

And there is ZERO graffiti anywhere. Personally, I'm not a fan of graffiti, I think it's a sign that society has given up on itself... well the Chinese definitely haven't given up on themselves. 

And lots of independent business. The old communist China government owned everything, but that changed many years ago. China is still governed by Chinese Communist Party. But economically, daily life looks very different than it did.

You can walk through Chengdu and see premium cars, luxury retail, high-end apartments, sophisticated digital payment systems, and a lot of consumer activity. Including small business that is independently owned and operated. For example, our dinner last night...

There was a young guy operating his street food stand. Once again, we took photos off his stand and showed him what we wanted.

Here he is, working the wok to make our food!

Rice dish.

And noodle dish. Total cost for the two dishes, $5 CAD ($3.50 USD).

We sat and ate our food while watching this group of people dance.

More and more people joined in, and by the time we left it was really busy, with people of all ages.

We're really impressed so far. No indication of homeless people, beggars, or graffiti. Clean free public washrooms. Efficient metro system.  Almost all vehicles electric. No trash anywhere. They are definitely doing something right. This is going to be an interesting three weeks.

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