Well, I've been here since January so figure I know enough to start a thread, although I've been working two jobs so haven't been out and about as much as I would like.
To start, Chengdu is a great place, even with earthquakes, and I would totally recommend it to anyone looking for a big city that is still fairly Chinese. I was in Beijing this month and it is so not Chinese anymore, at least not on the main streets, whereas Chengdu still looks and feels like the China I know and love. It is a big city, so it takes me 20mins in a taxi to get from the west to the south and probably 30mins from just outside the second ring road into the city centre, but I've only been to the actual "city centre" once since I got here so you can live fine without travelling that far. They have built a third ring road but quite a bit of the land between the second and third ring roads is undeveloped so far, maybe that will give you an idea of the scope of the city.
I lived in the west of the city near South Western University of Finance & Economics at first and there are not so many foreigners here, pretty much only those who teach at this uni. Most expats are either around Tong Zi Lin in the south of the city or near Sichuan Uni ("Chuan Da") on Kehua Bei Lu. But while there are a fair number of expats, it's not so many that you stop noticing them if you know what I mean, so you can pick whether you want to hang out with foreigners or locals very easily. Both the compounds I have lived in have had one or two other foreign families so not so many.
Shopping - there are several big supermarket chains in Chengdu, including Carrefour, Auchan, Ito Yokado and Trust Mart, as well as a Metro round to the west. So you can get pretty much everything you want "western"-wise. There is also Ikea for furniture and Decathlon for sports goods, as well as B&Q, a UK DIY chain. Most areas still have an outside market though where the fruit and veg are much fresher, although not always cheaper. There are also good tailors where you can buy lovely fabric and get clothes made and beautiful department stores where you can spend a fortune if you have one... There are some good bookstores in the city centre, I went to one, the South West Book Store, and was amazed at the range of fiction available, pretty much anything you would find at home you could fine there, very different from 8 years ago (the last time I lived in China) when all you could get were the classics! And of course you can get DVDs of anything and everything at every street corner.
Eating - Sichuan food is the best in China, in my opinion, but watch out for the huajiao (sichuan pepper) as this is pretty lethal stuff. Hot pot is everywhere if you like some food with your chilli, also lots of restaurants selling "chao shou" (hundun/dumpling/snack-style food) and other sichuan dishes. There is also lots of Tan food, as Chengdu is "the gateway to T" (not that the gateway is particularly open at the moment). There used to be lots of Lanzhou la mian shacks too but these are getting lost as the city is redeveloped. Western food is pretty good too, we have a Bookworm and also several branches of Peter's Tex-Mex, these are the two Western places I've eaten so far, oh and the Shamrock but I wasn't so impressed with that (maybe I was too sober
). There are also Macd's, KFC, Pizza Hut, Subway and Starbucks around the city. And as I said you can buy most of the ingredients you would want if you prefer to cook for yourself. You can even get some okay bread, although you have to hunt around a bit, there is a chain called "Bread Talk" that does good French sticks and the bread in Auchan is good too, I don't like the bread in Carrefour but their French pastries are nice.
Employment - there are a fair few foreign companies with plants here, including Nokia and Intel, so quite a few of the expats work for foreign companies and earn ridiculous amounts of money. Otherwise, there are some relocation companies that employ foreigners, training centres that are really just teaching English, and lots of unis/schools/kindergartens that are able to employ foreign teachers legitimately. The only place I know to avoid is the Intensive Language Training Centre at Sichuan Uni.
Leisure time - Pandas of course, at the Research & Breeding centre on the outskirts of town. Lots of great parks, we went to DongHu Park today which had a great lake in the centre (surprise surprise) and lots to do with kids. Have also been to HuanHuaXi park and can recommend it, both are free, as are the People's Park (RenMin GongYuan), QingYang Park and Culture Park. There is also Dufu's Thatched Cottage and WuHou Temple but I think the entry to these is quite steep. A bit further out there is FloraLand in Wenjiang, this is about 40-60min by public bus from the city centre and is a kind of theme park. Entry is completely free so you can go in and hang out without having to spend anything. Another good thing is that there are lots of places to eat and they were all reasonably priced, not like theme parks in the UK where the food is at least twice the price of normal. There were quite a few rides, such as a carousel, log flume, flying space ships etc, also a 3D cartoon movie which my husband said was pretty good, and those big inflatables that sit on water, you climb inside and then mess around on the water. There was probably lots more but I had limited time there as I went between classes one day. It was a fun day out but I would avoid it on the weekend/public holidays. Back in the city, there is JinSha Museum and park which is reported to be worth a visit. And right in the city centre you can go to TianFu Square and see the statue of Mao.
That's all I can think of for now, I will add more as and when... come to Chengdu, it ROCKS!!!!