Chengdu Mix Hostel

I'm sorry to temporarily close the Mix Hostel Blog as I'm too busy to catch up, I'll put more time into updating Mix Hostel's Official Website: www.mixhostel.com, and you can interact with me on FACEBOOK. (Find me by searching "Mix Shell")

'm sorry that for a long time I have not updated Mix Hostel's Blog as I was so busy with taking care of my son, the little devil. It was a nightmare for us when the nanny went back home for her 5 days holiday... Fortunately she came back the day before yesterday. We feel liberated!

Anyway, in the past 2 months, Hostel was doing alright specially when the world economy went bad. Winter season in fact was delayed, we got quite warm autumn and surprisely sunny days for almost a week! But since yesterday, the cold air come from Siberia finally arrived, we had a quite windy day yesterday, and people put on heavy jacket eventually.

Two weeks ago was a perfect sunny weekend, so i decided to do some exercise, with my newly bought DAHON folding bike, I cycled with a group of folding bike guys to Huanglongxi old town, according to my meter, the round trip was precisely 102 km.

It was great, besides of the very nice weather, a special route was recommended by an university teacher who has tremendous enthusiasm in biking sports, as well as his son, a little guy only 12-year old, has been trained very toughly, the best cyclers in that trip to Huanglongxi.

The first 1.5 hour trip was not that interesting, we, 8 cyclers, cycled all the way down south direction, crossing the urban jungles, fly-overs and high-tech zone, it then gradually became interesting as the countryside finally appears. I never know this route, in the past, I always drave through another way, a new high way, to Huanglongxi, but this biking route is aboslutely much better and much more to see.

Huanglongxi is ancient town some 50 km south of Chengdu, It has been listed in Lonely Planet and highly recommended by Rough Guide for many years, but due to the blindly tourism development, the town has been polished, which means, it lost some of its authentic characters. However, it's still a great place for chill-out an afternoon sitting near the river band, for cyclers, a perfect stop after 50 km cycling.

Many restaurants near the chain bridge, and the food was delicious. You wouldn't become picky as you will be very hungry after 3-4 hours riding. After eating, having a cup of tea under the trees is so relaxing.

We cycled back through the new high way, it was boring and effort-taken, because the road is always up and down, I hurted my knee on the road.

It was a nice cycling day anyway, and I really recommend this route if you want to see a little bit of Chengdu's countryside.

The Beijing Olympic Game Opening Ceremony revealed its mysterious veil on the 8th of Aug 2008 despite the threat was a potential risk for China's most important moment ever in history. The Torch Relay was not that smoothly passing in the West earlier this year, nevertheless, the game has successfully started on time in the capital. I watched nearly every opening ceremony since I was capable to understand the world, and this time, the show which directed by "Zhang Yi Mou" really made me excited, it's definitely out of my expectation, i mean, better.

Our guests have chance to watch this show in our hostel as we put a big screen in lobby with a projector.

Torch relay should have came to Chengdu earlier this year, however the wenchuan earthquake made it delayed. Since the torch relay arrived in Sichuan 3 days ago, Chengdu people have already been lighted up by the passion of the up-coming Olympic game, you can see many cars running on the street with China Flag and Beijing Olympic Game Flag tied on the car antenna, and the street vendors use the last chance to make profit of selling those flags. I was in a street side breakfast restaurant this morning, actually all the places on that street that the channels all locked on Olympic Torch Relay live, nearly all the people were concentratingly watching this live. Including me.

The Mix's Panda T-shirt has arrived in Chengdu today, it's only 39RMB/Per, buy one as souvenir for yourself or your friend!

Beijing Olympic will begin on 8th of August, 8 is the lucky number for Chinese people, Olympic opening ceremony will be held on the double-luck day.

For detailed broadcasting schedule, pls check out the official website for BEIJING OLYMPIC:
http://en.beijing2008.cn/cptvenues/schedule/

My son was born on 30th of June last month, constellation is cancer. He was born on the year of disaster, it's just like his mother, my wife, who was also born on an unpeaceful year-1976- many country's leaders died and the Tangshan Earthquake shaked the whole country it's absolutely a desitiny. (Both of my family and my wife's family shared the same experience of staying on the street back to 1976, the only difference is back to that time, there was no any high building in the city)

I gave this little devil a name JERRY. Why? 3 days after we came back home from hospital, I was lying on the bed thinking of a name for him, and an old cartoon "Tom and Jerry" came out from my mind. My son was born on the year of rat (2008), so why not to give him a name ralated with rat? And the Chinese name "Jie Rui" sounds exactly like JERRY. "Jie" stands "outstanding" and the "Rui" means "Smart"

It's been a month past since the earthquake occurred in Wenchuan, some 100 km away from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province. We fortunately experienced almost no damage in city, but those small counties in mountains were not that lucky, the mag8.0 is the strongest earthquake the new China ever came across which cause huge casualty.

The life in Chengdu city has come back to normal after a short panic, and this is the first time the people living in Chengdu experienced the earthquake, many of them when earthquake wave was passing Chengdu didn't believe that was earthquake, some thought it was a heavy truck passing by, or a new construction project carried on closeby. My friend's wife was going to bank to withdraw some money, when she just arrived in bank, suddenly she saw people running out, her first re-action was "BANK ROBBERY"!

My friends in Beijing who are running hostel told me that many travelers skipped Chengdu to other places which far away from earthquake epi-center, but here I would like to clarify that Chengdu, is as safe as usual, and the most of tourist places in Sichuan remain complete.

Except of going to the places such like Jiuzhaigou and Songpan, rest of tourists spots such like Panda Breeding Center, Leshan Giant Buddha, Mt.emei shan as well as Bamboo sea park are still open to the tourists. Why going up to the north of Sichuan is difficult is because the road was blocked by the landslide caused by earthquake, but people are now working on clearing up the road as soon as possible, so soon tourists can use this road to get to north of Sichuan again.

However, it doesn't mean that you can not go to Jiuzhaigou or Songpan as you still can choose to fly there which relatively more expensive than taking the bus.

First of all I should say thank you for all of you who pay concern to the Sichuan Wenchuan Earthquake disaster and Mix Hostel. Mix guests, staff, hostel, Chengdu city is still SAFE AND SOUND! Chengdu city has come back to normal after a short-time chaos caused by the aftershocks from Wenchuan area.

After earthquake occurred, hundreds of thousands of volunteers from Chengdu and national wide with more than 100,000 Liberation Army and international rescue workers (so far they are Japan, Russia and Korea) have gone into the earthquake-hit area, race against time, wish them discover and rescue as many as possible the earthquake victims. God Bless Them!

Following are some of the photos from the relief efforts in Mix Hostel.

As one of the greatest discovery in 20th century of China, "Jin Sha" has welcomed its one year anniversary since it's opened to public in 2007.

Actually I've already written something about this museum in the previous blogs, and by far, the only museum in Chengdu that I would like to recommend. The admission is 80 RMB, it's a bit over-budget for some travelers, but really, if you like museum, this place should not to miss.

With more than thousands of visitors have admired in "Jin Sha Relic Museum" for its mysterious history and background, now, "Jin Sha" is ready to declare as a natural heritage from UNESCO.

I wish "Jin Sha" successfully grab a seat in UNESCO's Natural Heritage list, and welcome more and more people come to witness this pride of Ancient Chengdu.

I had actually checked the weather forecast 4 days before, yesterday was a perfect day for going out. With Mix's foreign guests climbing team and Mix's staff climbing team, we set off to Luodai Hakka Town in the morning.

Luodai Hakka town is one of the Hakka people's inhabited area in China, and according to the Hakka people's saying, Hakka culture and the language preserved perfectly in Luodai here instead of south China.

Actually Hakka is not a national ethnic minority, they are Han Chinese Gypsy whom retreated back to isolated Sichuan basin when China widely had wars lunched by those warlords back to hundreds of years ago. They came to the "Land of abundance" and settled down, and stayed gather around with the people from the same hometown. Thus on the old street of Luodai there are four assemblyhalls which are respectively "North Sichuanese's Assemblyhall", "Cantonese Assemblyhall", "Hunanese and Guangxinese's Assemblyhall"  and "Jiangxinese's Assemblyhall".

Where we are going to climb is a wall built on the mountain some about 10km away from Luodai Hakka Ancient Town. When bus reached to the start point of the wall, the air became more fresh. Local government built this wall aimed to provide a fast way for Buddhist pilgrim to get to the top of the mountain, the end of the all, where a 2000-year old "Golden Dragon Temple" can be found. Though this temple is a small scale one, but it never effects the passion of the Buddhist pilgrims spent plenty of time to climb through a dirt path before the wall was completed.

Why I call it "Great" Wall, because it looks exactly like the "Great Wall" built in north China, only the scale is comparatively smaller. In March, the Peachblossom  , Pear tree flowers as well as rape flowers are thoroughly blooming around this area, so here is also a famous area for local Chengdu people come to go for a walk in Spring.

Wall stretches 1.6km from the foot of the mountain to the top, for Mix's Foreign Guests Team, this wall can be done in roughly 40 minutes, but for Mix's Staff Climbing Team, specially for our cooks, whom spent days in front of gas stove, this wall is definitely a challenge. But no matter what, all of us eventually reached to the top, and cooks even preyed for a good year in front of the Buddha statue in Golden Dragon Temple.

We walked down the mountain through the old dirt path passed by a dense forest which is nice. And we had a lunch in a "Nong Jia Le" and served 12 dishes and 1 soup. It was a big lunch.

It is said the vegetarian has very much good temper, but sometimes may not! After one of our guests got bite by PANDA, lately a Dutch traveler got bite by HORSE!!!

It sounds really ridiculous but it did happened. In Chengdu's Panda Breeding Center, there is a very popular program that visitors can take a photo with Mr/Miss Panda. Most of visitors are very cheerful, cos this is gonna be an absolutely show-off picture back home to their friends, in another hand, Breeding Center is happy also cause it is a quick way to increase the daily income (Maybe part of the money runs into the protection of this nearly distinct animal). Maybe at that moment the losing-temper Panda was just as a Dutch lady said he/she might suddenly fell the identity-criss? "I'm a Panda?", "I'm not a Panda", "I'm a vegetarian?", "I'm not a vegetarian?" YES! I'M NOT A VEGETARIAN!!!

Definitely the horse in Songpan has same problem, or maybe back to thousands of years ago, the Horse is actually a meat eater. Anyway, it warns us that even the most lovely animal could be the danger.

Travel safe!
Mix

Honestly, I don't like Hotpot at all though I'm a local and brought up in Chengdu for more than 30 years. Usually apart from "HOT", there is nothing left in terms of the taste, no matter what kind of food you dropped into the wot. Also, it's hardly to find a Hotpot restaurant (Not Chuan Chuan Xiang which can be widely found at streetside across the town) that is not closed inside a room, the smell of the Hotpot will be on your cloths for weeks, and only can be removed by washing, which is not that pleasant thing. Chengdu people, however, mostly, put it in their favorite food list, specially the girls from Chengdu whom love the spicy things most.

But, yesterday I found a FISH HOTPOT restaurant not far from the "Carrefour Supermarket"  near hostel, I have to say, this time, this HOTPOT thing finally differs from others.

The spicy soup in wot is quite mild in terms of the spicy standard, and for Chengdu locals, that is not spicy at all. The great part of this restaurant is that they have seats no only inside the building, but also have it in the garden outside which makes it a perfect place to have a Hotpot (Open air, quite chilling, and atmospheric).

The main course is fish, so you need to order fish first, it's based on catty (equals to 500 grams). You will be asked to the fish-vat to choose one, then they will weight it before start the process of brewing a fish. ( will the spices, brewed beans and something that i cannot tell)

We had a 3 catties fish which is quite big, with some snacks this dinner made us very full, they offer fresh orange juice as well, it's fresh, but a little bit watering. Fish meat was so tender, you even don't need to carefully chew it before swallowing. The sauce dish is the highlight of Fish Hotpot, with the red chilly pepper, salty kohlrabi, dry soybean, parsley and other stuffs as well as the soup from the Hotpot, It's very delicious (Pretty rich flavor left on your tongue).

This hotpot is located in "GOLDEN HAWAII 金色夏威夷" commercial block at the end tip of the first floor, the restaurant name is " Tuo Jiang Yu Fu 沱江鱼府".

Tip:
1. There are different kinds of fish ready in the vat for eaters to choose, I recommend the “Qian Yu 黔鱼”which comes with less fish bones inside, easier for those who see eating fish a challenge.
2. Usually the fish will be done in Hotpot in 10 minutes, but some might require longer time, ask waitress for details.

t's gonna be another peak time for buying  a train ticket again as it's time for those who came back for festival to go back to work. So, the long queue can be seen again, waiting in train station for a ticket for many hours is not extraordinary. And moreover, if you want to buy the train ticket to Beijing and Shanghai, you have to jump on a bus to "International Exhibition Hall" in "Shawan" and buy ticket there. It makes things more complicated! What a mess-up thanks to the large number of population in China...

My suggestion is, to fly. Or leave after Spring Festival, i mean not exact the day of the end of spring festival as it would impact for couple of weeks...

How many Spring Festival Events are carried on in Chengdu in Spring Festival?
1. Fire Dragon Dance in Huang Long Xi.
2. Temple Fairs in Wenshu Monastery's neighborhood near hostel and in Wuhou Temple in southwest of downtown.
3. Flowers exhibition in People's park near Mao Statue.
4. Lantern Fair in "Ta Zi Shan Park" in east of Chengdu.
5. Hakka Culture Festival in "Luo Dai"- Take bus 33 near hostel to "Wu Gui Qiao Bus Station", change a bus to "Luodai" which takes less than 1 hour and you can come back in same day.

For detailed schedule, find it from hostel's NOTICE BOARD.

Enjoy your stay during the Spring Festival!
Happy New Year!

I went to Huang Long Xi last year just for "Fire Dragon Dance".

Actually I knew this dance long time ago, but i never saw it in real until last year. It usually starts at 20:00 in the evening, begins with lion dance, Sichuan opera, a bit acrobatic shows, they keep "Fire Dragon Dance" in the end as a highlight on this show.

It was impressive dance, dragon dancers held the sticks which supports the long dragon, and they waved the dragon up and down in crowds of people. And the audiences all bought the fireworks and all of them just fired to dragon dancers, and dragon dances shuttled back and forth in crowds, and seems they didn't care about the burning on their skin at all! The dance lasted for about half hour, finally they used a special way to end up the show.

How to get here:
The best way is to hire a small van to taxi if you want to come back in same day as there is no public transport available for tourists after dark. But, there are many hotels in Huang Long Xi old town, for a standard room the usual cost is about 120 RMB.

The budget way:
Take bus from "Xin Nan Men Bus Station", buy ticket to "Huang Long Xi". It's only about roughly 30 Km south of Chengdu. Then come back to Chengdu the next day.

For this year, the show starts from 7th of Feb to11th of Feb, every evening.

P.S: If you can rent a bike in Huang Long Xi, it's quite enjoyable to cycle in countryside.

This is already the third year that we celebrate the spring festival in hostel with guests from all over the world. It's always fun to have dumpling party in hostel as all the travelers really enjoy it. But in Spring Festival, we have a little bit more has to offer-FIREWORKS!

Spring Festival Dumpling Party started at 18:30, they all came down, and hostel staff moved the table and put them together a big table for making dumpling, while others came back from town for dumpling party.

As always, mix's residents used many wired ways to show their dumpling making skill, though not every dumpling looks like a typical dumpling, but in general, this time, they did great job, no dumpling like "Pyrimid", "Tofu cube" or "smiling face".

We bought some duck and chicken dishes with Chinese traditional "Baijiu", after "Dumpling Ceremony", we all handed up the cups filled in with "Baijiu" and bottom it up to cheer the "Chinese Spring Festival Eve".

Since to set fireworks within 2-ring road became forbidden, i had to drive out of 2-ring road to look for fireworks. We bought many near the "Sichuan Normal University" and after having dumpling, we all went to riverside to set fireworks while Chinese backpacker girls were watching Spring Festival Show in hostel and definitely they quite enjoyed it.

It's kind of dangerous to set firework in improper way but British guys seemed not scared at all, they set the crackers by holding in hand, and when it was exploded on their hand they were just excited, I said to myself fortunately the fireworks i bought were not those powerful kinds, otherwise... Anyway, we enjoyed a night of dumpling and fireworks together in this traditional festival.

They are: USA, GERMANY, SINGAPORE, THAILAND, KOREA, PAKISTAN and FRANCE. And Philippine, Spain and South Africa is likely to set up their consulate in Chengdu soon...

The direct flight from Chengdu to Osaka (Japan) is going to lunch in the end of March according to Chengdu local Tv News.

If you still have extra time and want to see Chengdu in all different angles, you may check out "Nong Jia Le", a name probably you can only hear in Chengdu-commonly regarded as a city for leisure-though I don't think pretty much so.

"Nong Jia Le" can be literally translated as "Farmhouse" and "Happy" where local Chengdunese happily spend time on weekend with their family by playing province-wide game "Ma Jiang", drinking tea, enjoying healthy food grown up from relatively unpolluted countryside, locals like to forget city for a while in a place not far away from city.

The biggest "Nong Jia Le" area that I'm going to tell you is located at outskirt of Chengdu some about 10 km east of downtown, most of people drive there but "no-cars" can also catch bus at "Jiu Yan Qiao九眼桥", sure, Taxi is another option.

This large "Nong Jia Le" area used to be farming land occupying more than 620 acre, but by selling the crop can be very difficult for people living in rural area to increase their income, so about 4 years ago when local government tried to boast the tourism economy, here became an experimental field. Farmers stopped farming, instead, they converted their houses into guesthouses, restaurants, tea houses as well as the flower planting base-the demand of flowers in market is getting higher, and It's certainly more profitable than selling crops.

Go there when weather is good, see hundreds of people playing majiang together under the shadow of trees or a farmhouse's courtyard, take a walk on ridge of field, specially in spring time, when flowers is booming.

It's also perfect to ride there by bike.

P.s: This large "Nong Jia Le" area is consisted by two "Nong Jia Le", one is called: "Xing Fu Mei Lin 幸福梅林" and another one "San Sheng Hua Xiang 三圣花乡". You can find buses head there at "Jiu Yan Qiao 九眼桥".

Just shortly stopped for couple of days, the cold air from north again coming back and attacking most of north and middle area of China. I opened the window this morning and found heavily snowing rarely occurring, and according to weather forecasting, snowing is gonna be last for at least 3 days.

The roads connect to Gansu and Shaanxi, from Chongqing to Guizhou have temporarily closed due to the frozen dangerous road, just in case you guys are going to travel by bus in those area, check out the latest weather condition before you go. But of course, it doesn't effect train, and by now, the safest way to travel around.

According to the radio morning report, most of highways have re-opened again, but from Chongqing to Guizhou is still suspended.

It's perfect time to see snow now in near by mountains now!