PANDAS!

Now the day Tanny has been waiting for... the day we see the giant pandas.

We woke up at 6 am and went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Most people had tickets for a free breakfast, but our discounted room did not include them. It looked like a buffet breakfast with Chinese foods so I went up to fill my plate while Tanny guarded our table. As I was looking over the buffet, a worried looking member of the wait-staff hurried over to me and told me that it was the Chinese breakfast, not the English one. I said that it was okay and piled up my plate. I went back to the table and Tanny went to the buffet. While I was waiting for her, one of the wait staff brought Tanny an English breakfast of eggs and toast, but didn't bring one for me. I think it's now official that I'm more Chinese than Tanny. She disputes this claim of course.

Breakfast was quite tasty. I had spicy noodles, plain buns and pickled peppers. A little spicier than my standard cereal, but it apparently helps you battle the humidity.

Ok, back to pandas.

We got a more official looking mini-bus for this trip, but, like most Chinese vehicles we've seen, there were no seatbelts in the back. Tanny and I had the pleasure of riding in the back and had at least one trip into the air (about 5 cm!) as we zoomed over a bump in the road. I really wanted to get a picture of our driver's technique, but I couldn't capture it. The people in front of us (two people from Austin who were extremely insistant that we know they weren't from Texas originally) were terrified of the ride to the panda reserve, but Tanny and I were getting more used to Chinese traffic.

The panda breeding center is a huge park located about a half hour outside Chengdu. It's a fantastic park full of bamboo trees and man-made caves for the pandas to play and sleep in. They have both the giant black & white pandas as well as the smaller red pandas. It's a little more like a zoo than I expected, but the living areas are very expansive and more natural than a zoo. Most of the time the pandas just ate, slept or scratched their backs on some bamboo. Even I thought they were cute.

I think Tanny took two rolls of film in ten minutes.

It poured pretty heavily after we had been there for an hour so we watched a documentary on the breeding research. The most interesting thing to me is how startled the first time mothers are and how quickly the babies "pop" out. The really just squirt out and land on the floor, like a little pink weasle. One mother jumped back she was so scared. Another one sort of swatted the baby around the floor, not really sure what it was. Lucikly the staff rush in a take the babies away before gradually re-introducing them. Second-time mothers know what to expect and actually carry the baby in their paws for the first few months.

After the documentary it was still raining so we headed to the panda museum and souvenir shop for Tanny's first panda purse of the trip.

Back in Chengdu we decided to head to the Buddhist temple for a vegetarian lunch. We started walking in the direction that we thought would bring us to the right bus stop, but ended up walking the whole there (a couple of km). It made for a nice, if not confusing, walk. Tanny also found another panda purse.

I'm so glad Tanny can read Chinese... we needed the help finding out where we were!! I would have been absolutely lost without her.

The temple was quite different from the lama temple in Beijing. For one, it was very commericialised in parts. There are two huge tea rooms/patios and a big restaurant. I sort of imagined us sitting on the floor next to some monk, talking about the meaning of life, sipping tea and eating tofu, but it was just a restaurant with some cafeteria-esque wait staff. Oh well - the food was yummy. We had tofu made to look and taste like a duck... tasted more like tea-soaked tofu, some mushroom dumplings and a spicy peanut/tofu dish. I had some watermelon juice which was very refreshing.

Away from the restaurants, the temple was very nice. We saw more munks here than at the lama temple... many of them walking with people talking about the meaning of life or maybe the World Cup.. I'm not sure.

Tanny bought... no not a panda purse.... a cool wooden bell which we believe was carved by the lama himself. What a steal at 18 RMB (about $2).

On the way back we found the bus and took it back to the hotel without incident. I can't remember what we had planned for the night but we fell asleep before supper and didn't awake until the next morning. Did I mention how hot it is? It just saps your strength.

Actually, that brings me to another general observation. Chinese people like to sleep. I can't believe how many people I see asleep at their jobs. Mostly the street vendors, but also ticket agents, etc. I can't blame them in this heat. Now I know where Tanny gets her sleepiness.

Oh - another observation I'd like to share... really more of a rumour-buster. I am not a giant among the Chinese. More like average height. What happened! I was promised a world of short people when I was in elementary school. Oh well...