Central Chengdu (Part II): Zhaixiangzi Alley

Next, taking taxi again, I'm taken to an alley called Zhaixiangzi (窄巷子). This is an up-and-coming district of Chengdu, where old, single-story houses with a courtyard inside were (and are being) restored to become trendy restaurants and bars. I'm rather surprised that Chengdu, a local city of China, has already reached such a stage of modernization: mixing tradition with the latest trend to create something new, which Westernized Japan just managed to achieve only less than a decade ago. Sometimes the aesthetic of people involved in this restoration project is in doubt, as exemplified by Starbucks on this alley, but the whole atmosphere is what I haven't experienced anywhere else in this world. It's an intriguing area of Chengdu.