Chengdu - the giant pandas

Nothing cuter than the giant pandas!
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Now we moved on to our second nights train adventure to get us to the city of Chengdu to see the giant pandas. Similar experience except here we had soft sleepers and only four to a bunk. After our early morning arrival, we went to a large panda reserve and breeding facility to learn more about the pandas. The facility has been in existance for about 10 years and they started with only six pandas initially. They now have over 70 and they had 9 new baby pandas born this year and 9 last year as well so they are seeing much success. The pandas are quite lazy animals (but oh so cute). They basically eat (bamboo) and sleep all day. They literally eat while laying on their back – apparently sitting up is too much work. The young pandas were amazing. Luckily, the sun was out that day (rare when Chengdu has over 300 days of overcast skies due to its geographical location in the basin of surrounding mountains) and they said that they were more active and playful than usual. It was quite fun to watch.

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We also learned some good history about the city from our local guide, Chicory. They are known for their fair skinned girls and short boys – due to the lack of sunshine. Fair skinned girls are favored among the Chinese she says – and we have noticed in the stores that their facial lotion actually has whitening agents in them. The girls here are also known to be very strong and are called spicy girls. The boys are often called soft eared boys because the girls are always tugging on them and pushing them around so to speak.

always eating bamboo....
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Our most fun interaction was with the local children at the reserve. They were groups of children visiting and as they would pass they would all practice their English by saying “hello!” or “hi” or “good morning”. One group of kids said “hello” to Scott and he responded back with a “hello” and then a “how are you”? They all repeated back in unison “how are you?” Very cute. All these children now learn English in grade school and love to say hello when they see foreigners.

The little ones acrobatics were almost as impressive as the acrobatic show that we saw in Beijing!
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For our afternoon, we went over to the Tibetan street for some lunch. We found a Tibetan restaurant and ordered something from the picture menu. Whatever it was that we ordered, we very much enjoyed. It was basically meat, potatoes and peppers cooked in a cast iron skillet so that the potatoes were crispy. We think the meat may have been Yak but we really have no idea.

We then strolled along some of the shopping streets and along the river back to our hotel. This city is known for it’s laid back atmosphere and that was evident in our walk home. In every park we came across, it was full of people having tea and playing games. Very nice really.

Our yummy Tibetan meal
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Our evening dinner had to be the Sichuan hotpot as Chengdu is the capital city of the Sichuan province. Although we had tried the hotpot already, it was not nearly as spicy as what we experienced this night. The sichuan spices and seeds were unbelievably spicy. Quite good though as long as you were sure that none of the seeds made it into a piece of lettuce that you pulled out of the pot.

Next, on to Emei Shan.

Funny tidbit of the day: One thing that we didn’t expect but that our group has gotten used to is having locals come up and ask to have their picture taken with you. Apparently, many Chinese (especially from rural areas) have never seen westerners and so it’s been fun to have our pictures taken along the way.