Jinmeichen Business Hotel Chengdu

... Then there’s another guy called明哥whose about my age and wants me help him buy Gucci and Prada bags when I get back to London so he can make a whopping profit back in China?! And finally a girl 小周 whose fresh out of uni. They’re all pretty easy to chat to and make conversation with. They often laugh at me for saying stupid things with my rather weird accent and recently taught me all these ...

... you can watch babies in incubators and being hand-fed with bottles.

All in, Chengdu has a lot to offer even before counting it as a base for visiting the ancient towns, mountains and minorities scattered across Sichuan. I was tempted to linger, and look forward to returning in late October. But China is a big country, and with the October holiday bearing down it was time to move on...
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... It was a big park, so I’m sure there were things that we didn’t see, but I think we saw all of the important things. The pandas were in zoo sized enclosures, which to me looked quite adequate as far as zoos go. It also seemed like every place we wanted to go was an uphill incline away from where we currently were. How that was possible I don’t know, but once again it was a good thing that we train for climbing stairs everyday getting to our dorm ...

... there was nothing out there to see (there was cloud cover every time I looked out, so I didn’t even get to see the ocean). Actually, I just really wanted to let a bit of light in, because the constant dark of the plane started to annoy me after a while. But anyway, the guys were really, really polite, lifting my carry-ons into the bin and back when I needed things and passing me the last cup of water when the flight attendant ran out. The guy on the aisle was wearing a ...

... playful and dramatic and the old pandas didn't move much and were kind of moody. We watched a video all about the stages of a panda's life and all about insemination because they date mate often- little too graphic for my liking. It was all in Chinese so reading the subtitles were quite entertaining. We saw red pandas too- which really don't look like pandas at all- more like a fox mixed with a ...

... so we had to wake up the porter. Checked in and had to leave a 500RMB deposit and they charged 200RMB more than we had been quoted, also we were told we couldn't go on the panda trip in the morning, so went to bed not best pleased. However someone knocked on our door 10mins later ad said they had found us a place on a panda tour, so we were all much happier also Min and Yao had promised to take us out for hot pot the next night which sounded like fun!

... a full-scale armed rebellion against the motherland. Although Norbu Lingka was controlled by the rebels and it was hard to make contact with the Dalai Lama, acting representative of the central government Tan Guansan managed to send three letters to the Dalai Lama on March 10, 11 and 15 through patriots. In them, Tan expressed his understanding of the Dalai Lama's situation as well as his concern for the latter's safety. He pointed out that the rebels were making reckless ...

... from my Chinese friend, Agan. The motorcycle dealer called; the bike will be ready by tomorrow morning! Apparently he made about 20 or 30 phone calls to other dealerships in the area and finally found the bike I want 3 hours away near the city of Chongqing. I just have to pay an extra $25 for transportation costs. Tomorrow I will have a brand new, fully registered motorcycle with expat license plates... and I realize that I couldn't have ...

... else we did in China, it was perfect for the pandas. Being giant, furry creatures, they're not big on heat, so in the cold they were running all over the place. Lucky us! The first panda we saw was curled up asleep on a bamboo platform, because, you know, you find these in nature all the time. The next panda was in the same enclosure pacing around in a large circle, but the light was bad and he had his back to us or behind a large tree or rock much of the ...

... of tea had I studied Mandarin to a higher level than less-than-zero), shadow hands (very clever), stick puppets (very good) and the famous changing faces where masks are switched in the blink of an eye. After faithfully avoiding Starbucks thus far, the boredom with noodles for breakfast, alongside the inability of supermarkets to sell decent cake finally took its toll and we broke our boycott. I never thought I'd say this but it was ...