Chengdu

Chengdu needs 3 days: the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, with dozens of semi-wild pandas -best visited early morning- on one, Jinli Street with traditional Qing dynasty architecture on another, and a spicy hot pot meal, a local specialty, on the third. March-May and September-November are best. It's inexpensive for China. It's the unofficial world capital of the giant panda, with the largest concentration of captive pandas on the planet, and its cuisine, the spiciest of China's eight great culinary traditions, centers on Sichuan peppercorn, which produces a characteristic mouth-numbing sensation.