Kuan/Zhai Alley and Chengdu Food

Walking in China

No matter where I travel in China, from common city streets to remote mountain villages, my favorite activity is just to walk. Usually with no destination, I try my ability to head off in a direction and then find my way back. If going to a particular destination I do prefer to walk. It usually ends up with thousands of interesting sights, albeit probably typical for a resident, always of interest to me.

Kuan and Zhai Alley

I’ve been here many times and it never gets old. Despite being a tourist attraction, Kuan and Zhai (Wide and Narrow) Alley is a great way to experience a touch of history in Chengdu.

A cool display of beautiful photographs from around China are on display for the National Day holiday. Celebrating the founding of modern China, this holiday is very much like our July 4th. People travel home and BBQ. They also tend to get out to all the tourist spots. Joni and I visited on National Day.  Not a  great choice for us to align our travel this year with this Holiday – I didn’t know about it until I landed in China. She had no idea.

It was probably the most people I have ever experienced in one space, outside of a US’s Black Friday stampedes years before. I was only able to get snap photos when there was a break in the crowd. I would actually see larger crowds in Shanghai for the same holiday in 2017.

You have to admire these pants.

This guy sells old-style elongated Chinese pipes. How does he promote them? By laying back and smoking all day.

Here is Joni, looking 110% Japanese.

The week of National Day is a popular time for weddings, and the parties were out in full force for photos.

In the middle of this traditional-Chinese street is a French chocolate shop.

Struggling to find a Chinese restaurant that wasn’t packed (or served disgusting fish) Joni and I find a German restaurant (of all places) and she picks some American items from the menu.

Food-service quality onions rings.

Frozen pizza with the crust cut off.  (probably the most expensive frozen pizza I have ever purchased).

Some of these storefronts are older than the United States.

 

 

Two boys wait for the candy artist to make them a dragon lollipop. Pay 40 yuan, spin the wheel and the man crafts out a shape with molten sugar. Pay extra to get some color added. Pay even more to get a 3D sugar sculpture (you can see a potted plant made out of sugar in the corner of the pic).

 

A man tosses balls of dough across a drum, lined with symbols, which produce crowd-attracting beat, before landing into a nutty-sugary powder that coats them before they are dropped onto a package and sold.

 

I didn’t know what I was eating at the time, but apparently under a nice coating of chilies and peanuts, there’s pig lung sitting on a bed of rice noodles. Not a bad snack. It was a little spongy/rubbery.

Sweet sticky-rice (you can get these in the USA)

Yes! trays of my favorite Chinese snack: Steamed Dumplings!! There’s no limit to how many of these pork dumplings I can devour. Pick them up by hand, bite into them and the soft, squishy dough gives way to a hot and succulent meatball.

 

They have cotton candy, but I only saw it in white/flavorless. Cotton Candy was invented in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

 

We head out to meet Jing for a nice Sichuan style dinner.

Pork back… roasted and fried on a bed of those kelp-like veggies I’m really beginning to hate at this point. The pork is extremely flavorful, like bacon, yet tender like a roast. The fat turns to oil at the touch of the tongue. Really good stuff.

A cabbage soup in chicken broth. Not much too it. As good as boiled cabbage can be.

A beef and vegetable dish shown here on the left. I thought it was a standard beef stir fry like we can get into the US, with one major exception: the sauces here are not thick and flavored with soy sauce. They are pepper and onion-based, thin, and extremely complex.

My favorite Sichuan dish… Sichuan Pork (Aka… Garlic Shredded Pork). This insanely complex dish of pork, shredded unknown vegetables, and chilies hits your pallet on all fronts. Sweet, sour, protein, spicy, crunch, smooth, oily… and easy to eat. Put this on a bed of rice to dilute the intense flavor and you have something you cannot stop eating.