By Derek Kirkham

DAY 1:Well I’m here… After a 4 hour delay in vancouver and and a 90 minute delay in Beijing, we finally made it to Chengdu. I don’t have much to say about the city yet except for the horrible air quality. It feels like walking through a cloud of smoke and it smells like charcoal. I’m glad I brought a whole bunch of herbs for my sad and soon to be congested herbs.  Pic of my hotel room to the right.

DAY 2:

Sichuan spice is the phrase of the day. My goal of not eating spicy food due to some stomach issues lasted about 20 minutes. I was walking down a busy street in Chengdu today and all of a sudden I started coughing and sneezing. I realized there was a “hot pot” restaurant across the street that had their windows open. Basically, a hot pot is a caldron of boiling hot, spicy (take your breath away) liquid filled with meat and vegetables. At that moment I truly realized that I was in the capitol of Sichuan province and there would be no way to escape the spice.