Chengdu is the largest city in southwest China (population four and a half million, and growing). It happens to be the main gateway to Tibet, and the cheapest and easiest place to get a Tibet foreign visitor permit and catch a flight to Lhasa. We spent several days here, touring the city under perpetual gray skies and a deep haze.

We arrived just in time for National Day, celebrating the founding of the People's Republic of China, which coincided this year with the week-long Golden Autumn festival, apparently the major shopping event for what seemed to be a million exuberant residents and out of town visitors! Our short stay in Chengdu dispelled many misconceptions we harbored regarding China. It's very modern here, the streets are clean and relatively quiet, thanks to the electric motorbikes, the temples are crowded, we rarely saw foreign visitors, and very few people speak any English, though many seem eager to learn. We discovered fancy department stores, sleek malls, Starbucks (with free wi-fi), and an Ethan Allen furniture store, in addition to hundreds of small shops selling clothes and food. Mass consumerism has hit big time in the Peoples Republic.

Strangely, our thundercloudstudio website seems to be blocked in China. We can't see the site from here, but hopefully it's online back home. I guess it's all that subversive content (must be the Tarsiers, or ...?) We feel honored!