Back in China

I arrived in Chengdu on Tuesday, after a long couple days on the plane. I had never been here before and ended up at a place I had seen a brochure for last year in Shangrila, called Sim's Cozy guesthouse. It's a great place - big and full of travelers but extremely cozy, as advertised, and amazingly cheap. The couple who run it are a man from Singapore and a woman from Japan, and it caters almost entirely to the global trekker scene.

I came here to meet with a scientist from the Chengdu Inst. of Biology, and I did that on wednesday. He's a funny, youngish guy and introduced me to his lab who were all very sweet. I felt a little sheepish because the professor made a couple of his students present their work to me in English, which really put them on the spot but they were all very good-natured about it. I like Chengdu. It feels smaller than Kunming, and the vibe is lively, but laid back. People on the street have been really friendly. Well after our meetings they took me out to dinner, which was delish - spicy but not quite painful. The lab group seems to really enjoy each other and there was cutting up and teasing over dinner and it was very relaxed. Turns out the next day began a three day holiday so it's a good thing I came to meet them my first day in town. And so then I was free to play.

I found a group of American tourists at the guest house who wanted to see the big buddha at Leshan, some say it's the worlds largest but you get a lot of hyperboyle out here. We hired a van through the guest house and drove a couple hours to the site. Somehow we had forgotten about the holiday that began that day, and we didn't leave as early as the recommended 7 am. The big budda was jam-packed. We waited in a line like they have at Disneyworld, but the only thing at the end of the line is the buddha's big toenail.

The next day I went to the Panda Breeding center. Sichuan Province is the "Home of the Panda" and this center was the first place to breed them live in captivity. There are about 100 pandas there, rolling around eating bamboo all day. The adults are solitary but the adolescents and babies are kept together, and climb on each other and play. It was pretty amazing to see so many of them, and hear them crunching on bamboo. How can they eat that stuff? In other news, this blog is blocked in China and I'm using a proxy to get it out, but I can't seem to upload photos directly. So please bear with me and check out the link below:

http://picasaweb.google.com/scratchfarmer/Chengdu?feat=directlink