One-Day Tour: Chengdu Panda Base and Cooking Class

In pandas' hometown, you are definitely visiting them first! In the morning, your guide will pick you up around 7:30AM at your hotel lobby to visit Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Base, a non-profit facility, for giant pandas and other rare animals as Pandas are more active in the morning hours. On a guided tour, your will explore different sections of the center for an overview of pandas' development from a tiny baby to a fully grown giant panda. Visit the baby garden, where you can see giant panda cubs weighing only about 3.5 ounces (100 grams) at birth but by the third month, they are able to walk on their own feet.

You will enjoy lunch and be introduced to authentic Chinese cuisine in a restaurant where locals frequent. In the Afternoon, the cooking class begin with a guided market visit to gain better understandings about ingredients such as vegetables and meats you will be using for cooking. Then you will receive a lecture on the history of Sichuan Cuisine and the governing principles in cooking Sichuan food. Next, you will spend some time learning knife skills to cut vegetables and meats for prepping. Then you will cook a few popular dishes of your choice before the class begins. After you have fixed all the dishes, enjoy your own cooking. The length of the cooking class will be a half-day sampling experience.

Travel Highlights: 1. Visit Chengdu Panda Base - the base with most giant pandas in China 2. Visit local market with a local guide and learn about basic ingredients for Chinese cuisine 3. Make most popular Sichuan dishes guided by a local chef 4. Learn the culture of Chinese cuisine and more stories behind them

What will you learn?

1. Cooking skills, such as cutting and preparing your pantry

2. Traditional Sichuan dishes

3. Chengdu comfort food, such as “Dandan Noodle”

4. Dumpling making

5. Sichuan pastries

6. Sichuan pickles

7. Home-made rice wine

8. Sichuan hotpot

9. Traditional Sichuan soups

10. Chinese medicinal cuisine

11. Traditional Tibetan flavor, such as yak butter tea

Your menu could cater to your liking based on the list above. You could choose the dishes you love the most and your chef will help you prepare your meal!

How do you learn?

Step 1. Visit to the local wet market with your chef to gain better understandings of basic ingredients

Step 2. Lecture of Sichuan cuisine history and Chinese food culture

Step 3. Prepare the pantry and practice cutting skill

Step 4. Start cooking

Step 5. Enjoy the dishes you have made

You will be transferred back to your hotel after the meal.