23 Dec 2017
This is an entry about Chengdu, but as I type this, We’re actually on vacation in Hongkong waiting for our room to be ready so I thought I’d use the time productively! The vacation post will be another post. I’m doing this post directly from my phone, so not exactly sure how the formatting is going to work!
First of all, I’m a Christian and I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! If you have another faith, I wish you a wonderful holiday as well. May we all be blessed as we move into the next year.
Today is the most important day of my life! Why? Because it is the only day I can live! My Yesterday’s, no matter how important they were then, I can’t go back and change. My Tomorrow’s, no matter what I have planned, or how well I prepare, I can’t experience now. So I want to make it all about Today! I want to make each moment count today. Today, I’m with my sweet husband, doing exactly what I want to do and I’m with exactly who I want to be with. In life, we have no guarantees, let’s seize the day, Today!
Back in mid December 2017, I went with a small group of my work colleagues to visit one of our customers (Volvo) assembly plant. At least once a year, as an act of recognition, I try to take some team members to visit customers and get a feel for what is important to the customer and see their processes. This year, the visit was to go to Chengdu, located in Sichuan Province.
Sichuan Province is in the southwest part of China, next to Tibet. Just to give you a sense of scale, China is roughly the same size as the US, so to fly from Shenyang (Northeast) to Chengdu (southwest) is about 4 hours.
I’m not going to go into the details of the visit of the factory here, but suffice to say it was impressive and worth our visit and time.
Our team around the new Volvo SUV with Michelin tires on it, made st our plant in Shenyang.
The 2 plant managers shake hands!
Our team at the tire and rim assembly plant located very close to the Volvo plant. As the name implies, the tires are put in rims, inflated, checked and then put on pallets to go directly to the assembly line for putting on the car.
After visiting the plant and the tire and rim assembly plant we visited a Wuhou shrine of LIU Bei who is credited with uniting the 3 kingdoms of ancient China into 1 country back in 220-280 AD (yes, that is correct, I’m not missing a 0!...China has a very long history!)
Statues of LIU Bei and many of his family are shown all around the temple.
Outside of the shrine, an old traditional street waits with many tea houses and souvenir shops.. in this photo our quality manager KE Yuking and I are having fun!
At the Shrine, the Ginko trees were in blazing fall yellow and it was just beautiful and peaceful.
At the entrance to the night market in Chengdu just beside the Wuhou Shrine.
Sarah at the Traditional night market street beside the Wuhou shrine in Chengdu
Sichuan is known for the spicey food, mask changing, beautiful natural landscapes, panda bears and earthquakes! Luckily we didn’t experience any earthquakes while there, but we did enjoy the food, mask changing and a small part of the landscape and saw many pandas! Chengdu is actually located in a valley surrounded by mountains making the weather there quite unique. In fact, in winter, it is foggy, misty most all of the time and in the summer hot and muggy. Chengdu has the reputation of being a very laid back city where people play majong and drink tea a lot. We were not there long enough for me to see any of that, but I trust my Chinese colleagues when they tell me that!
A quick change mask performance at the restaurant.
The entrance to the restaurant
Mask change performance in chengdu
Spicy Sichuan dishes! Those red things are peppers!
This is called Ma Po tofu. A traditional favorite of Chengdu. I had to try this because I heard about it in my Chinese language lessons! Tofu by itself doesn’t have a lot of tastes..so the sauce makes or breaks it. This was actually pretty tasty!
On the next day, we started our day at the Panda research center where we got to see many pandas. The guide told us that if you want to see the pandas having fun, you must come in the morning, otherwise they are just sleeping! Good advice! This center
Was Established In 1987 and is zoo dedicated to the preservation of pandas. In the wild there are only about 1600 left and they are all in Sichuan Province. They mostly eat and sleep! When a female has a baby, she raises it on her own, as pandas do not run in packs, for this reason the survival rate of the pandas in the wild is quite low. They eat a special type of bamboo (40 kg/day) and it is cut and brought in specially each day. In this place there are over 100 pandas at any given time and when pandas are donated to other countries in the world, they come from here.
Panda doing what panda does best..eat!
Panda eating!
Panda moving!
Sarah coming out of the bamboo forest at the Panda preserve.
Our Shenyang team at the Panda Preserve in Chengdu.
After the panda center, we stopped at a delightful countryside restaurant and had lunch. The food is spicy, it not nearly as hot as I thought it would be..it was not like jalapeño hot to me, hard to describe, but kind of sweet hot. I liked it! (And I’m not a spicy hot eater!)
Open air cooking
Open air restaurant in Chengdu on the way to Qingshan Mountain.
Open air dining in Sichuan Province
After getting our full of Sichuan cuisine, we continued up to Qing Shan mountain which is a Taoist retreat/shrine area. We climbed up the mountain (steps) and visited the shrine. This place will always remain a wonderful place for me. As I mentioned in the last entry about Our journey with cancer, it was at this Taoist shrine where I got a message from Rod’s doctor after he finished his last radiation treatment that the CT scan looked good. I hope he was right and we can kick the cancer can down the road a little farther.
Entrance to the shrine
A nice little boat ride across the lake
Sarah at the top of the mountain shrine. The symbol behind me is 道 which means the road or path.
Sarah having fun at the entrance to the shrine
Our Personnel Manager (and excellent photographer!) Mr Bi Fuchen and Sarah. When I got the news that Rod’s CT scan looked good, Mr Bi was right beside me and I just hugged him..I could help it! It caught him by surprise, but he was and continues to be very supportive.
A rest area with many roof lines!
Sarah outside the temple after getting the message from Rod’s doctor that the CT scan looked good!
Sarah lighting a candle for Rod and Sarah at the Qing Shan Taoist shrine outside of Chengdu.
Sarah with a grateful heart in Chengdu
Qingshan mountain in Sichuan Province
A knotty crooked pine will grow anywhere, and when it grows in the side of a mountain at a Taoist shrine, it will become special and be adorned with red prayer ribbons! on top of Qing Shan mountain!
The autumn view from Qingshan mountain
Just one of the beautiful scenes at the Qingshan mountain shrine.
Just hangin out with some of the team at Qingshan
A wonderful way to cap off the day at Qingshan mountain!
The next day we headed home and I got to hug my dear hubby! He was not feeling so good physically but emotionally we were both in high spirits. The physical side was predicted, we’re both confident this will improve with time too.
I really believe these types of trips are worth the cost. We learn from our customers, see things we need to do back in our daily jobs, and more importantly we get to know each other and have some fun!
Until next time! Seize the day: Love today, Pray today, exercise today, eat well today, think today.
Sarah
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