Day 12: Mystery Chengdu!

Saturday, May 19, 2018

11am, text from Dong Laoshi, scavenger hunt moved up an hour. The goal was plain and simple; through a list of 70 potential items, we were become more familiar with the city of Chengdu by completing as many items we could within the five-hour window with a small team of four (all the while getting an opportunity to practice our Mandarin in a very practical setting). Activities were set up with different values depending on their varying levels of difficulty. Items involving straying far from the city center were worth upwards of 50 points while items that could be completed anywhere such as trying different foods were worth only ten.  

Initial irritation of a lost hour of rest after a long week of classes turned into jianbing "breakfast", and team spirits were immediately on the up and up. After going through a few activities that could be completed on campus, my team's plan was to first make our way to Tianfu Square, the very center of the city, and start working our way out from there. We took a 15-minute subway ride from campus to the square and were able to take a picture in front of a statue of Mao (10 points), buy something from a bakery (10 points), and busk as a musician (10 points). We (Cedrick) even got paid, but a lack of evidence brought the point value down. If Cedrick ever comes to a point in his life where he looking for direction, he could easily make it as a street musician in China; I am also wondering why he never comes out to karaoke–anyways I digress. 

From Tianfu Square, we rode Ofo's, the popular dockless bike-sharing service, to Chengdu's Little Lhasa where we got a picture with a Tibetan Monk (a cool 50 points). Bikes were certainly the key to our team's success. It provided the perfect balance between being an efficient mode to get from point A to B while also allowing for the freedom to spontaneously diverge off our planned course of action to complete simpler tasks including getting WeChat QR codes for specific types of stores and trying different foods. 

With about an hour left, we made our way to Chunxi Road, the meeting point for the end of the scavenger hunt. With time winding down, we seemed out of luck. We wanted to find places to try the over a dozen street snacks on the score sheet, but it seemed improbable that we would find anywhere that sold such faire in quite a ritzy area. Our saving grace was a grocery store with a food court in the basement. The last-second flurry of food-related points pushed our team into first place total of 335 points on the day. Our efforts were rewarded with wonton soup, dumplings, spicy noodles, and the promise of free, hour-long, foot massages for the winning team. We have yet to make up our mind whether to go that route. Stay tuned! 

Eliot S.