A few days ago, a Jackie Chan movie called Panda Plan popped up while I was scrolling at home. The plot was pretty formulaic and there were not many real laughs in it, but Guoguo kept saying how adorable giant pandas were and that she wanted to see them in person. That was enough to set the trip in motion. There is a line online that describes travel perfectly: it is basically leaving the place you are tired of and going to a place other people are tired of.
The next evening, we boarded the much-talked-about D982 train. It runs from Shanghai Hongqiao to Chengdu East, leaving at night and arriving the next morning. After one night of sleep, it pulled in right on time at 8:15 a.m. The train itself was quite nice: only the first two cars were standard hard-seat coaches, while the rest were sleeper cars. Everything was clean and comfortable. The only inconvenience was on the return trip—when it reached Anqing, it was in the middle of the night, and passengers were not allowed to board there.
Neither of us is very good with spicy food, so we skipped the full Sichuan hotpot experience. But we did learn a surprisingly effective money-saving trick from a friend. At Kuanzhai Alley, we ordered three dishes and the bill came out to more than 360 yuan. We sent a screenshot over, and she immediately bought a group coupon on Xianyu: 105 yuan for five dishes. That was genuinely shocking.
Because the whole trip was arranged in a rush, we did not plan our route very carefully, which made everything feel a little hurried. In three days in Chengdu, we managed to visit Kuanzhai Alley, the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, Chunxi Road, Du Fu Thatched Cottage, Wuhou Shrine, and Haibincheng.
Kuanzhai Alley
My first impression was that it felt like a Sichuan version of Pingjiang Road. The only obvious difference was the lack of a river. Otherwise, the atmosphere was strangely similar: rows of shops on both sides, a well-worn historic street setup, and performances woven into the commercial bustle. On Pingjiang Road, the shops are accompanied by Suzhou pingtan; here, it was Sichuan face-changing performances instead.
Chengdu Panda Base
The internet-famous panda Huahua is not someone you can simply show up and expect to see. When we went, the weather was quite hot, and she stayed hidden instead of coming out. Still, we saw several other pandas in different enclosures, so the trip was far from a disappointment.
Du Fu Thatched Cottage
When we reached Du Fu Thatched Cottage, a sudden shower rolled in and lasted for more than ten minutes. The rain added a certain mood to the place, though it also interrupted the walk for a while.
Haibincheng
This was Guoguo's favorite stop of the whole trip. We spent an entire day inside HaoHai Cube Ocean Park. The project is divided into two sections. One is the Elf Kingdom, built around a story in which an elf prince falls into a cursed sleep, and visitors move through designed scenes to help revive him before finally reaching the elf palace. The other is the Ocean Kingdom, where a wide range of marine life is on display.
The trip was brief and a little rushed, but Chengdu still left a clear impression: old-style streets packed with shops, pandas that may or may not decide to show themselves, a sudden spell of rain in a historic garden, and a child happily spending an entire day in an ocean-themed world.