9 April 2013
Lets get out of here
I am now at Chengdu airport waiting for my flight.
Cathay has no lounge but they do have a deal with Air China, So I can use theres, and update my boring website whilst waiting.
Getting here took barely any time at all, as a result I was at the airport hours early, before I could check in even. No problem I can wander around and observe the drama of airport lines.
Except this was a particularly quiet time at a quiet international terminal, the vast majority of traffic from here is domestic.
Before that (my stories have no sensical chronology), I had to get a taxi from my hotel to the airport. This I managed to negotiate speaking mandarin, but it was a thrilling ride head on into traffic, narrowly avoiding busses, reversing up a main road due to some sort of delay whilst the driver laughed at me for holding on and occasionally yelled at the talk back radio he had on.
Once you are on the airport expressway however, its smooth sailing, all up the journey took 45 minutes and cost about $6.
Now for my thoughts on Chengdu specifically.
Currently it may be the best place to live or work in China in my opinion. With the proviso that I didnt see any terribly polluted days and I hear they have lots.
I also didnt experience the heat of summer, which is also ridiculous, but I feel that might be the case all across China.
What it does have is a nice working metro, relatively clean streets, friendly people, a laid back attitude, great food, lots of things to do, good connections to other parts of China, and its not yet over run by tourists or expat bankers.
The other contender is from my previous visit, which is Hangzhou. I probably had a better visit as a tourist to Hangzhou, its Chinas number 1 domestic tourist location by a considerable margin.
Hangzhou lacked a metro when I was there, although it is scheduled to start opening now, this made getting around quite difficult, but it does have a lot more natural sites, and is better situated close to Shanghai and Nanjing and countless other places.
Chengdu food is better though! Because I love spicy food and without a doubt Chengdu is the world champion for chilli.
Enough of that, a few boring pictures to talk crap about before I wander around the airport a bit cause theres no decent food in this lounge.
I will try not to contract bird flu before I go.
Its me in the very grey, very sparsely populated check in hall of Chengdu airport.
Final panda photo (probably, you never know whats on the other side of security).
Strangely, there are 3 different international departure areas, each with their own security and no way to travel between them. Theres only 3 or so flights departing from this hall this afternoon. Hence its small and a ghost town.
The air china lounge. Nothing to get excited about, except they have internet and free drinks.
It does have a decent view of the apron. My planes not here yet which is a little concerning given the delays I had on the same Hong Kong to Chengdu flight getting here.
And its me, sitting here typing this.