Giant Panda-Shadow Puppetry DIY-Sichuan Opera Experience Day Tour

08:00: Hotel Pick-up

We will pick up from your hotel and then start the journey to Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Center, which is around 10 km north to Chengdu.

08:30-11:00: Giant Panda Breeding Center

As the world’s famous giant panda ex situ conservation base, scientific research and breeding base, public education base and educational tourism base, the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is famous for the protection and breeding of endangered wild animals that are unique to China, including giant pandas and red pandas. It is honored as “the national treasure’s natural paradise and the people’s land of idyllic beauty” for its beautiful environment of overlapping mountains, clean water, lush trees, and chirping birds.

Today we will visit rooms of adult pandas, sub-adult pandas and baby pandas, you can see they are eating bamboo and playing around in the morning.

Chengdu Giant Panda Chengdu Giant Panda

13:00-16:00: Shadow Puppetry Show & DIY

Shadow puppetry is a folk drama in China, in which players hold human figures that are made of animal hides or paperboards, and reflected on the curtain through the light, playing stories accompanied by the string and drums music with local popular tunes. It enjoys a wide popularity and has various forms owing to different local styles. On May 20, 2006, shadow play was enlisted into the first patch of National Intangible Culture Heritage

We will arrive at the Shadow Puppetry workshop at around 13:00. The show will last about 20 minutes (2 famous Chinese legend or stories) and we will have about 10 minutes to feel and try the puppetry on your own. Afterwards, we will choose our own puppetry (rudiment) and we will need to color it with our own imagination and the teacher's guidance. After the teacher's explaination, you will get a better idea of its culture and history and really have a deeper understanding of this art.

Shadow Puppetry DIY Shadow Puppetry Experience

16:30-17:30: Kuanzhai Alley

The history of Kuanzhai Alley can be dated back to the Qing Dynasty. Consisting of Wide (Kuan) Alley, Narrow (Zhai) Alley and Well (Jing) Alley, it’s one of Chengdu’s historical and cultural reserves together with Daci Temple reserve and Wenshu Temple reserve. You can feel the enthusiasim of Chengdu people as well as the combination of ancient and modern architecture.

Kuanzhai Alley Kuanzhai Alley

19:00-21:30: Sichuan Opera Show (Optional)

Sichuan Opera is mainly popular in southwest China. The most famous part of Sichuan Opera are face-changing and fire-spitting.

We will arrive at the Opera House at about 19:00 to exchange the paper ticket. Afterwards, you will be able to enter the backstage to see how the actors and actress do the make-up, how they dress themselves and how they make preparation for the show. The show officially starts at 20:00 and will last about 1.5 hours. Apart from Sichuan Opera show, you will also see other forms of folk arts.

Shufengyayun Opera House Sichuan Opera