We decided to go to Chengdu this weekend! It's the province right next to ours and the Panda capital of the world. Our co teachers helped us buy train tickets online and we left right after school on friday! We were so excited to get out of Chongqing for the weekend and to ride the train for the first time! It was a quick 2 hour trip and really nice actually. Trains are one of my favorite ways to get around. We stayed at hostel that was pretty nice and booked a tour for the Chengdu Great Panda Research and Breeding Center!
The next day we were picked up bright and early and taken to the panda center! There are 84 pandas there and they are trying to breed more to save them from extinction. We got there just at feeding time, and it was so interesting! They eat a ton of bamboo all day to keep warm and they looked so human-like while eating! Some were double-fisting it, bamboo in each hand chomping it like carrots!
This little guy couldn't get enough!
My favorites were obviously the babies! They were climbing trees, playing on children's toys and just being plain cute!
I mean, how cute are they?!
We also got to see red pandas! I don't think I have ever seen one before and they really looked more like foxes then pandas, but still very cool!
Of course, they were playing Kung Fu Panda!
That night, we also went to the Sichuan Opera! I didn't really know what to expect but it was really amazing. The singing, the dancing, and music were so cool. The Sichuan Opera is famous because of the face changing. They wear masks and then really quickly pull them off to reveal another mask or put on more masks. It was really neat and lightning fast. I don't know how they did it!
Justin and I went ice skating! He is obviously really good, being from Maine and actually having snow, but I held my own by the end! It was really fun and unexpected.
Our last day we walked down by the river and went to the People's Park. There were tons of people hanging out, playing games, playing and listening to music and doing the famous "ear cleaning." It was so gross. Old ladies had all of these tools and were pulling huge hunks of crap out of old men's ears! They kept waving us over to try it out...blegh.
Until next time, Chengdu! Can't wait!
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
