Classic transit day today. We slept in and hit up the breakfast buffet. In the last three days I have grown to love congee for breakfast.

Then we packed up and headed to the train station. The station is huge, like an airport. But way easier to navigate. We got on the train easily and then zoned out for the 3.5 hours to get to Chengdu. Unlike our last train ride, this one took us through a more rural area and was about 1/3 in dark tunnels, cutting right through mountains. We’d occasionally emerge in little towns and then go right back into darkness.

Like last time, I was fascinated by the huge blocks of apartments that were seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Here’s an example – maybe 50 identical skyscrapers along a river and surrounded by little else.

We arrived in Chengdu and made it through the chaos and into a taxi. Millie is such a little pro now, I kept glancing at her confidently pushing her own bag and keeping up with us in the station. It feels like she’s matured a lot since we arrived in China.

We are staying in the center of town in a really nice hotel. We have a living room, kitchen, laundry, etc. and it’s $100/night. Our room in Xi’an was also great and $60/night. Another thing to love about China!

We are in Chengdu for the two things that most people come here for: to see pandas and to eat Sichuan food. After some relaxation we ventured out for dinner. My first impression of the city is that it’s huge and feels wealthy. Nick looked up the population and it’s 21 MILLION people. That’s bigger than if you combined the populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix. I don’t think I had even heard of Chengdu before we started planning this trip? Maybe that’s a reflection on my own ignorance, but once again I am just amazed by the scale—and power—of China.

Anyway, we went to a popular restaurant and ordered some noodles, spicy for me and Nick and mild for Millie. Ours were thick, kind of sweet, peanutty, and very spicy. We were still hungry so then we ordered sichuan chicken that we saw everyone around us eating. Once again, it was excellent. It smelled sweet like maple syrup but tasted rich and spicy. I think I’ve mentioned it already but our biggest surprise so far is how sweet all the food is.

We walked back to our hotel and read some books. Millie has gotten into comic books and I love reading them to her.

I will leave you with a robot store we walked past.