Kidoctr's Progress Notes: Day 8 (16 Sep 2018) – Guilin to Chengdu, Adventures by Disney Enchanted China Adults Only Tour

Breakfast was at 6 am and was far less crowded this early. We boarded the bus and pulled out of the hotel at 6:45 am headed for the Guilin airport. Along the way, Jenny narrated for the last time and described traditional courting methods and gave us each a sachet symbolizing the one that girls would make and stuff with various things and then throw at boys they were interested in.

Our flight to Chengdu was a lot shorter this time. We were given hand wipes and peanuts.

Once we reached Chengdu and did our now very familiar bathroom gathering, we went to baggage claim to pick up our suitcases. Normally, we wouldn’t have to do this as “Tinker Bell” took care of our luggage for most of the flights but there was apparently some conference going on with increased security at the airport so Tinker Bell couldn’t get her helpers to come in and take care of our bags. So we retrieved our luggage, took them out past security, and dropped them off to the luggage handlers.

The weather was much cooler in Chengdu – population of 18 million. We walked past a fleet of taxis at the airport and about 30 minutes later we were pulling up in front of the Ritz-Carlton.

On the coach, Jenny told us that the city was known for 3 things: Kung Pao chicken, Ma Po tofu (spicy tofu), and the Hot Pot. It’s also home to 200 species of bamboo which is probably one of the reasons why the city is known for its pandas. Ralph told us that this hotel had the best bathrooms – not just 5 stars but 500 stars. The hotel had a different lay out – the main level was just elevators which we took the actual hotel reception on the 25^th floor. We then switched to another set elevators that took us up to the restaurant on the 27^th floor where we were served lunch.

Here’s where things got a little odd. I found it interesting that the 3 women at our table had our names placed in front of us but didn’t think too much about it. Apparently, this was the way ABD communicated to the kitchen who had dietary restrictions. I never let ABD know about my strong dislike of cilantro as I usually just skip anything with it or it’s big enough to just remove but apparently Tinker Bell had gotten wind of this and let the kitchen know ahead of time that I didn’t want any cilantro. That’s impressive service.

Dish after delicious dish was brought out family style. The hands down favorite was the wasabi flavored shrimp.

Fish

Mushrooms

Sliced Radishes

Wood ear aka tree fungus

Chicken

BBQ pork

Spicy Chicken

Beef with peppers

Wasabi shrimp

Beef with mushroomms

Fried glutinous rice with bean paste

We were given our pin of the day and got to watch a tea potdemonstration where the guy twirled around a long spouted tea pot andserved it into a small cup. It was fun to watch and pretty amazing that he didn’t spill any of it.

We were given our pin of the day, our room keys and took our carry ons up to our rooms where our suitcases were already waiting for us.

Soon I heard Seth laughing out loud in the bathroom and discovered what Ralph was talking about. The bathroom was very high tech. Check out this video of how the toilet works.

Unfortunately, there weren’t any USB charging ports or 110 V outlets so we used our converters again – thank goodness we had 4 of them so we could charge up our various electronics. We put a few things away and then met about an hour later down in the lobby for the optional walking tour of a local park to see what locals did on a typical Sunday afternoon. We had quite a few people who opted to take this tour with some staying behind to rest.

The park was beautiful – bamboo everywhere. We walked by an “orchestra” of traditional instruments and headed to a clearing where a kung fu master did a demonstration for us of tai chi and kung fu. We tried some tai chi and found it very hard to follow him. After his kung fu demonstration, he took some pictures with us in different poses.

We then headed out to the outdoor tea house where there were a ton of people drinking tea and playing cards or mah jong. They seated us at several tables together and we were given an opportunity to look around, get massages (50 RMB), ear cleanings, and/or watch the candy maker drizzle hot brown sugar onto a marble slab in many intricate designs. We were invited to each spin the wheel to see which candy figure we would get – the largest being the dragon of which several in our group did get. There were many dragonflies, butterflies, peaches (a sign of long life), swallows, crabs, and roosters. The candy master did them so quickly and easily. This was Daisy and Ralph’s “treat” for us. I got a swallow but ended up giving it to a little girl who was sitting by the river.

Then they did a mah jong demonstration and there were so many of us crowded around the table to learn how to play it (a simplified version, many of the traditional tiles were not in this mah jong set) that passers-by stopped to see what we were doing and wondering what the crowd and if there was something super intense going on. Some of the locals even helped our Adventurers play a couple of games and we heard later that someone had taken a video of these “games” and posted it to the Chinese YouTube channel which ended up getting over 65,000 views.

On our way back to the motor coach, one of the other Adventurers was taking a video of some ladies dancing in the park when Ralph did a "photo bomb" in the video - it was so funny that this video I asked for it to be air dropped to me.

We re-boarded the motor coach and went back to the Ritz-Carlton to get ready for dinner. A woman was playing beautiful Asian music on a Chinese zither in the lobby.

There was a Ritz-Carlton bag sitting under our TV with 2 mooncakes in it. I was so happy to get these as I had commented to Daisy in the lobby this morning that I wanted to buy a couple of them – not a whole box of 9 or 12 of them that we had seen sold at every hotel so far. I later found out that we were the only ones to receive these and when I inquired with Ralph, he said he would “check with Daisy” but never got back to us so I asked Daisy and she suggested maybe it was Tinker Bell. This is the magic of an Adventures by Disney and what we love about traveling with ABD – these small but super meaningful and thoughtful gestures from “Tinker Bell” and both Ralph and Daisy were very non-chalant about it – declining to take any credit.

We had a change in our itinerary and instead of a group dinner tonight, it was switched with tomorrow night for an on your own dinner. Wade had made us dinner reservations at Li Xuan at the hotel and, fortunately, they were able to switch nights for us. We were invited to the bar, Flair, for aperitifs before dinner so we met Wade and Charlie up on the 27^th floor and were seated outside on the patio with a nice view of the city.

The restaurant director of food and beverage, Pasha, that Wade had been emailing with, stopped by to meet us and had Patrice pour us glasses of a special Rothschild champagne that was made specifically made for the Ritz-Carlton in Chengdu. I ordered a Ghost Orchid which was delicious.

Pasha and Patrice

Rothschild champagne produced specifically for the Ritz-Carlton Chengdu

"Ghost Orchid" cocktail

We were seated in a dining room off the bar rather than in the restaurant we had lunch in and started with an amuse bouche followed by a scallop carpaccio, cod, shrimp and wagyu beef. They were all quite good and we were told by Pasha that this tasting was based on a menu they served a few weeks earlier when they had a guest German Michelin chef. We asked for a wine pairing so they gave us a red blend as well as a white that were both Chinese wines. They filled our glasses frequently.