Mission Accomplished

We caught a bus back to Chengdu from Emei Shan. Chengdu is one of the largest cities in China. They are currently building a subway line in the main area of town, so traffic was a nightmare. Even worse, city buses changed their routes with no rhyme or reason, so navigating the city was a pain. Additionally, Chengdu doesn't have too much in terms of landmarks or sites to see. BUT, they do have one biggie on the city limits, the Giant Panda Breeding Research Center.

We'll get to that in a minute, but first some other pictures. By the time we reached Chengdu, we already had our fill of obscure city temples, so we skipped those. Chengdu does have some great areas of the city that are renovated to look like old China. They really pull it off without looking fake. Our hotel in Chengdu was a traditional Chinese hotel with courtyard, and in fact, the entire street was called the architecture street with tons of renovated old buildings. During the day, the staff or other guests would push the tables together for improvised ping pong games!

Chengdu also has a lot of great parks. It's common to see entire families out in the parks either at the kid "fantasy land" where all the little girls wear pretty elaborate princess crowns or the older members playing cards or fishing in the park ponds with bamboo poles for their lunch. Here are some pics that were taken in or around the many parks of Chengdu. The picture below is pretty funny too look at it, and of course, it has a funny story. Inside the People's Park is a fun-house set in an abandoned underground tunnel. We had heard that it was pretty tacky, and I don't think the fun-house even reaches that. Articles like the tiger(?) below point the way to the actual fun-house which is just a particle board maze shrouded in complete darkness. After each turn, a motion display of some type pops up and tries to scare people. Unfortunately, all of the displays are of the same or lesser quality as the tiger you see below with most not even working. The scariest thing was the thought of breaking our necks from the total darkness. That was 5 yuan down the toilet.

Chengdu is also famous for the giant Mao Zedong statue that salutes the main city square. In the background stands the Chengdu Science and Technology Museum; something that Mao would have supported, no doubt. Although, just opposite Mao (unpictured) is a street overruning with capitalist delights from Gucci, Prada, Rolex, etc. I don't think Mao would have approved, but maybe that's why they placed the statue there poised to shame any Chinese shoppers exiting the store. We were also lucky enough to partake in some great Western food in Chengdu. Tex-Mex!! It was our second attempt at "Mexican" cuisine, and it came of much better than the first. If you're ever in Chengdu or Shanghai, be sure to hit Peter's Tex-Mex (Sorry, no pics. We were more concerned with eating). There's really not much else to say about Chengdu, so bring on the pandas! The research center is a ways out of town. We decided to take off pretty early because the pandas generally sleep all day after their massive breakfast. The plan worked, and we got to see pandas of all shapes and sizes in action. They have different areas for the pandas based on their size, we decided to see what the big 'uns were up to first. We were greeted warmly.We were just in time to see the adult pandas eating. They eat a ton of bamboo, and once one started, we didn't see it stop. Pandas have a special thumb that helps them grasp and hold the bamboo. The peel off the leaves in, hold a bunch in their hand, and start munching. We've got a video of it, after the picture below.

After watching pandas eat for a while, we headed over to the sub-adult pandas. We saw a lot more pandas eating, but this time they were having a family meal.

They sit close so that they can prop up their bamboo on their nearest friend. Once again, we watched a lot of eating (and even some green pooing) and then made our way to the adolescent pandas (don't worry, they're next to last). The adolescents have a lot more energy. They had eaten, and were already out playing. Going down isn't as easy as going up. He held himself in this position before finally just tumbling to the ground. He was eager to get to his friend below so they could wrestle. Close to the adolescent pen is where they keep all the real panda cubs, affectionally called "the babies" by Darbie. I have seen a lot of cute things in my life, but upon seeing "the babies" I had to resist the urge to curl up into the fetal position and melt. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take pictures of the babies because they are afraid the babies would get scared. The cubs were very active. They are kept in little rooms with teeter-totters, balls, and climbing towers, and they happily play with all those things. They love to try to squeeze through things, and climb to the top of things, only to fall down to the ground and do it all over again. One room contained four or five babies that were about to be fed. They were amazingly playful with the workers, hugging their legs as soon as they walk in the room. They got very excited when they saw their baby bottles and each time they were given one they would grab it with two paws, shove it into their mouths, and instantly fall onto their backs in glee. Each time this would happen this would draw "awwws" and giggles from the small crowd gathered to watch. Remembering our dear readers, I broke the rules (and got busted), and took a quick shot when a baby panda came over to the window to greet us. He's waving.

After we managed to pull ourselves away from the cubs, it was time for Darbie to get better acquainted with a panda. She had to get sterilized and covered so she wouldn't spread her nasty human germs to the panda.I didn't miss this moment, and we now proudly present the world premiere of Darbie's panda holding video:

Here's a picture of Darbie and "Little Girl" in case you want to put it on a coffee mug, mouse pad or t-shirt.

Oh yeah, we saw some red pandas, but we won't spend too much time with them. After all, they're the lesser panda. They're pretty cute too, though, it is pretty nasty how they attack each other's tails. You can see a pretty nasty tail in the picture below.

Eww. That's why they are they lesser panda.

Miles Traveled: Emei to Chengdu - 80 miles

Total: 1685 miles

DB&KM