4. Get up close and personal with giant pandas

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, within 10 kilometers from downtown Chengdu, is the best place to glimpse China's most famous inhabitants: the giant panda. Many pandas live at the base, which has successfully gotten these notoriously shy creatures to breed. You may even see tiny newborns there! This is the most popular tourist attraction in Chengdu, bringing in tourists from all over the world.