It’s on. Be-Mag is in China to document the FISE World Series tour stop in Chengdu.
With a population of 14 million people, Chengdu officially ranks 4th in China and as you can probably guess, it’s nothing but impressive to be here. The streets are bigger than anything I’ve seen before and the driving with all sorts of vehicles is nuts, especially the electrical ones since you can’t hear them coming. There’s anything from a whole family on a motorbike to big ass cars with old rich man and young sweet ladies in it. There is countless dark, grey, sketchy buildings everywhere and just on the other side of the road you will find the worlds largest building, including a giant shopping mall, hotels, apartments and of course a waterpark with the worlds largest big-screen in it.
Text: Johannes Jacobi
Photos: Dominik Wagner
So far about the basics. After a 16 hours travel we spent the first day figuring out if we are jet-lagged or not. We got here quite early in the morning and already the bus ride to the hotel was impressive, scary and funny at the same time. Drivers that almost crashed out of pure excitement seeing us in that bus, constantly honking scooter drivers, 6 lane roads and little paradise like gardens next to it. Checking in, showering and off we were again to check out the FISE park at the American Sports Centre. Next to that crazy highway there is everything from go-cart, soccer, tennis, a totally nuts mountainbike slopestyle course including a looping, a BMX / blading park, a skateboard park and why not, a snowboard park. Impressive setup for the first FISE stop in Asia.
After meeting most of the riders at the park we went to checkout the Chengdu Global Centre. You should Google that one, since there are no words to describe that building. A little bit of shopping, some food and back to the hotel, which took us forever since no taxi driver wanted to take foreigners and apparently no one knew where our hotel was. What a mission!
Tomorrow morning we are going to see some pandas, but now it’s nighttime and you already know what that means. We will be back with some good stories and great pictures tomorrow, make sure to check back!
