On our arrival at Chengdu we had a great evening with our friends Karin Moorhouse and Wei Cheng strolling the Wide and Narrow Lanes (Kuan Xiangzi and Zhai Xiangzi) of the city, first built during the Qing dynasty for Manchu soldiers.
Chengdu is the provincial capital and largest city of Sichuan Province in southwest China with an urban population of 10 million inhabitants. 80 percent of the Giant Pandas live in Sichuan Province.
On the last day in Chengdu, we returned to Beijing but before going to the airport we headed for a century-old tea house in Peng Zhen village.
We ventured to a small rural village 30 km west of Chengdu to sip tea in its century-old tea house. The building is more than 400 years old (Ming dynasty). The venue wasn't posh but the regular customers (the oldies) are very interesting. They drink tea, smoke homemade cigars and play poker, day in day out.
Karin wants us to experience the atmosphere of the old tea house and the characters that frequent it and she did not disappoint us, as usual.
The photos tried to give you a glimpse of what our experience was.
