Day 23: Chengdu (成都)

another rainy day in Chengdu means we had to cancel our plans for a boat visit to a big Buddha carved into a mountain (樂山大佛).  Instead we went to a museum (三星堆博物館) which had artifacts from 3000-1000 BC that were first found in the 1930's by a farmer, but wasn‘t really excavated until after the cultural revolution.  Most of the items discovered earlier were "destroyed by historical events" as the Chinese tours would say and leave it at that.  The museum was very well made and the highlights were gold masks shaped and put on bronze busts as well as huge pieces of art that were recovered from ~1000-2000 BC.

From 77 Days in China

Rain from our hostel window

From 77 Days in China

The museum name

From 77 Days in China

A huge head recovered

From 77 Days in China

Another head this time with strange eyes

From 77 Days in China

A birds head

From 77 Days in China

Gold mask on bronze bust

From 77 Days in China

Just a cool picture I took outside the museum

After the museum we headed to another pedestrian mall where we got some meat on a stick, always a favorite, and then saw a Dairy Queen, so we had to stop and get a blizzard before finding some dinner.

We hit a Sichuan(四川) place that had my favorite Sichuan dish, a spicy beef stew. Unfortunately we found out for sure now that Seattle has better Sichuan food than Sichuan!