Lots of Giant Pandas

I had a great day today visiting the Pandas.
Hope you enjoy the pictures!



It was fascinating to see so many Pandas at once. The Chengdu Research Center, built in the late 80’s was open to public in 1993. The center is billed as the Largest Giant Panda Eco Park in the World. We were able to see groups of pandas from 1yr old cubs to adults.

Chengdu - Changing Faces Opera Show

We saw Sichuan Opera Show – had much more humor and folklore than Beijing Opera – but some similarities as well. There was a solo on the Erhu (Two stringed – bowed instrument) that captured audience.
We also witnessed the changing faces opera performance. Even when performer came out into audience, it was difficult to comprehend how the changes were accomplished so quickly. There was even a stick puppet that the performer was able to demonstrate the face-changing performance.

Hu-Xian Farmer Village

We got to see past and present immages of farmer village. We arrived in town and visited an English langage school. The kids were anxious to ask the foreingers questions - and it was fun to get opportunity to interact. We were then taken to 'old village' - that govenment was mandating relocation to 'new village' - several blocks away. Had opportunity to stay with a local family and also interact at a dance held in our honor in the town park. may family had teen age kids who were doing pretty well with English. There mother was also enjoying the interaction. She had her Chinsese / English dictionary that we used to facilate our communication. We learned on Sunday morning that she was a Chistian - as were my fellow travel partners for the night. We sang a few songs - even if words were not the same - it was fun to find some common ground. (Jesus Loves Me / Amazing Grace worked pretty well!).

Terra-Cotta Army

Was a lot more here that I had even anticipated. We drove out to the farm area where the discovery was made. A new facility has been built around the ‘dig’ to allow visitors to witness and also protect the artifacts. The site is active – and evidence of the continued research was evident.

Medicinal Herbs - Apr 3

Had opportunity to visit a Chinese Herb Market. It was a wholesale market specializing in medicinal herbs. I know I was glad I could not identify all the items – even when I was told what was in front of me. Chinese medicine often calls for a number of ingredients to be put into water, boiled, then stored in jar to take regularly – like tea 3 x a days. Ingredients included things like snakes, caterpillars, turtles, mudbug shells, bones and various other animal parts – including a few human to the best of my understanding. (David and Jorge would have enjoyed this experience!).

Eastern vs Western

In general – I prefer Western – but I’m getting used to Eastern . (I’m talking about toilets – or Happy Rooms as we have been trained to call them on out tour). Have to admit, the happy rooms on the train were not very happy, but necessary on a 12 hr journey.

Train Ride

Train Ride –
Beijing train station was crowded with Chinese going about their normal activities (along with a few tourists). There were farmers carrying burlap bags over their shoulders, as well as mothers with their child. Kind of an orderly chaos as streams of people moved thru security checks and escalators moving toward their designated staging areas. Luckily, we had reserved “soft seats” and as result had a special waiting area. Our compartment on train was pretty comfortable. Two lower and two upper bunks – with two assigned to each compartment. We ended up with a party in my room as we had a few drinks and visited. We also invited our guide to take our top bunk instead of sharing with total strangers down the train. Was alittle hard getting to sleep, but eventually I got to sleep. I woke up early and enjoyed watching out the window with the sun rising – the mountains and farms began to be visible as we rolled along. Watching out I was able to see old crumbling homesteads. Villages, farmland and caves that’s were dug into the mountain sides. The fields had yellow blossoms I was to learn were rapeseed. Also went past some more industrial areas - power plants and more housing along the train stations. Some of the housing looked like hutong’s in Beijing – and there were a 6-10 floor residential buildings as well. Between these areas were wide concrete paved paths. As morning continued, saw joggers. Students going to school and others going to work. There were also a few modern looking interstate roads.

As we got closer to Xian, housing and industry began to get more congested. Upon arrival at train station, we were intermingled with locals. We walked along the outside of the city wall – separated by the moat. Along the wall were paths and also exercise equipment stations that many people were using.