In retrospect, it wasn't a good idea to watch that Liam Neeson movie in which his plane crashes in the Alaskan wilderness and he finds himself with a bunch of oil-rig roughnecks trying to fight off hungry wolves. Gory bits of the film flashed through my mind the next morning during our flight to Chengdu. Every time we experienced turbulence, I closed my eyes and tried to think of the giant pandas.

Group travel had never been our idea of fun, but with three days off from work in Beijing during Spring Festival and no time to plan ahead, a China Culture Center tour of Sichuan province seemed like a wise move, and before you could say "hot, spicy food", we were sitting on a bus in Chengdu.

The guided tour proved to be a shining example of the power of cultural tourism to transcend language difficulties and stimulate our interest in the people and history of China. Pandas are the ultimate use of soft power, of course, and a visit to the reserve was a highlight. The Sichuan Opera performances and the Sanxingdui Museum containing artifacts from the Shu people were wonderful, too.