A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step... (or a 17 hour plane ride): 10/20 Pandas!!!

October 20th

Today was by far my favorite day in China - I got to see GIANT PANDAS and lots of them!!!

Let's start with breakfast though. After trying to have breakfast yesterday and realizing that Chinese hotel breakfast is entirely different than American breakfast, my mom and I walked down to a bakery. My dad will eat pretty much anything so he went to the free hotel breakfast. We picked out a few pastries - well we thought they were pastries. The first thing we tried was bread with tiny hot dogs inside. The next thing looked like cinnamon bread but I think it was stuffed with a sweet bean paste. The final item was like angel food cake. Let's just say that my dad George was pretty pleased when we offered him pieces of the bread and angel food cake!

We went to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding on the outskirts of Chengdu. The Sichuan province is known for giant pandas. Some of the pandas in the wild live in the mountains of this province.

Tickets to see the Pandas

Today, we had another family friend of the uncle take some of our group and we rode with the younger cousin. We walked to the park and made our way to see some adolescent pandas. They were not too active but they were so adorable. I wanted to steal each of them to bring home especially the little ones. I got some great video of one eating, one climbing, and lots of photos of them sleeping!

The younger cousin made a donation on behalf of my parents, myself and my brother to the base and gave us beautiful panda pins. He also made another donation in my name and got me a stuffed panda since I wasn't able to hold one for real :) He was very kind and went above and beyond!!!

About 90 minutes into being at the park, Leon translated that the uncle was ready to leave and he wanted us to go have lunch with a friend. We had only see about 10% of the park. I told Leon that they could leave without me because I didn't fly 6000 miles to see 6-8 pandas. It was decided that my parents and I would stay at the panda park and everyone else would go for lunch and then they would pick us up at 4.

We visited the different panda exhibits. They also had red pandas. There were free roaming peacocks. At one point, my mom and I saw a male peacock doing its mating dance for a female peahen which was cool and unexpected. There was a small panda in a nursery area that was sleeping. Here are a bunch of pictures!

For lunch, we had fried rice and a bacon, tomato, cheese sandwich. It was pretty tasty and not too exotic! The park was very large and we were very tired from all the walking and panda watching!

At 4, they picked us up and we went back to the aunt and uncle's apartment to fold our laundry. It was nice to have some clean clothes to wear again!

We had goose for dinner along with chicken and carrots, tofu, butternut squash field pea soup, and rice. The goose was purchased at lunch by the man they joined. I really enjoyed the soup and want to try to make it when I get back.

After dinner, we dropped off my parents and we headed to Jinli Street (it's name means carp fish). I was able to pick up a few gifts. This adventure included the cousins, the older cousin's wife, Leon, and me. We were supposed to meet the person who helped drive earlier but she wasn't able to make it.

There were people cleaning ear wax out of people's ears as you walked down the street. This street had a lot of activity - restaurants, shops, carts, and street food vendors. The food area (which is what Leon wanted to see) had a variety of options - most of them were really hot and spicy. I got a fruit drink that was made from plums - it was refreshing and delicious.

JinLi is a popular commercial and dining area resembling the ancient-style architecture of West Sichuan. "Jinli" is the name of an old street in Chengdu dating from the Han dynasty and means "making perfection more perfect". The ancient Jinli Street was one of the oldest and the most commercialized streets in the history of the Shu and was well known throughout the country during the Qin, Han and Three Kingdoms Periods. Many aspects of the urban life of Chengdu are present in the current-day Jinli area: teahouses, restaurants, bars, theatrical stages, handicraft stores, local snack vendors and specialty shops.