Jinguanyi Apartment Hotel Chengdu

... a lovely gesture, the first of many random acts of kindness shown to mew on this trip
he then took us to the panda's
he knows they are awake and playful in th e mornign hence the early start
We had them to our selves most of the first hour
just lovely surroundings acres of open forest for them with huge moat so they can't get out
Sw the 3 coming to SA and then one of their mothers
I got to pat her
Then ...

... office. My room faces onto a persons home with small vegetable patch, cute little white dog who sleeps all day long and a set of caged roosters who crow every half hour or so!! So I do properly feel like I’m working in a farm and its was slightly bizarre at first to get used to! The team is miniscule compared to what I expected, (only 2-3 people overlooking the site progress) so it is quite quiet here. Nonetheless Mr ...

... and an inside pond with koi. We got some western food and lounged about for a bit and then found out they were fully booked, so we ended up in "Sims Cozy Garden Hostel" which is even nicer than Mix and has lots of friendly animals to play with. Even better is the bar, which stocks Malibu, Baileys and Absolute Vodka.

Our bedroom is clean and bright with a pirate style bed and an amazing shower. The bathroom is about 4 foot square and you can sit on the toilet ...

... from the room. By the time I got out of the shower it was raining pretty steadily, though not hard.

In class Li laoshi told us that we had a quiz, and we all looked at him blankly because You laoshi had not told us that we had a quiz, only to study our characters. So Li laoshi moved the quiz to tomorrow. I think I could have done okay, because I already know most of the characters in the chapter ...

... skin, blue, green or gray eyes and hair lighter than mine. There are also Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, and Tajiks-all Central Asians. In a country where appearance seems to equal nationality (How many times have people informed Dan that he was, in fact, Chinese, despite his and his parents' places of birth?) these ethnic groups are a curiosity. Where we live in Guizhou province, people on the street stare and comment on our foreign-ness. But here, in XinJiang, it's my clothes and ...

... much like a normal class. The difference was at the end I taught them all how to say the english names for their happy meal contents. I am quite tired or I would elaborate on this a bit more, but I wanted to say one last hey until I get back from the trip. I am not bringing my computer, and unless I use someones there to update, I'll be back on the 8th! Anyway I am going to upload some pictures for you all! Have a Happy Halloween!

Chengdu was mainly a stopover city on our way to Tibet, but there was one nearby attraction that had captured our interest. In the quiet riverside city of Laoshan, just a 2 hour bus ride from Chengdu, sits the world's biggest Buddha (not biggest sitting, or biggest reclining, or biggest gold, or whatever, as can be found in other Asian cities...just biggest, plain and simple). The statue is by no means a masterpiece. It was carved into a cliff by ...

... clucthing onto each other and screaming (don`t deny it boys). That evening we went for another hot pot (basically dropping raw meat and veg into a boiling vat of broth in the middle of the table...then attempting to pick it out with your chop-sticks whilst hoping its cooked). In the morning we left for chengdu airport. 24 hours after we left chengdu the earthquake struck so we`re very lucky to be ...

... it was about 15 out. We had a beer, always good for a cold and hung out for an hour or so. We then picked up some movies and decided to just hang out tonight, since we both felt pretty lousy. My cheeks were sooo red I looked like a porcelain doll! So we hung out for a while, watched a movie. Jes had to go pickup our tickets from the travel desk, as well as some toast and water for me. He ...

We arrived in Chengdu at 5.30 in the morning and were picked up from the station by our local guide. We decided that as we were already up we'd go to the Panda sanctury. The drizzle and cold made the sanctury seem more mysterious and it was really cool to see all the Pandas in a fairly natural environment looking so laid back and happily munching on bamboo. The sanctury is rather large and is currently focussing on breeding pandas and ...