Chengdu is a tiny city in China of roughly 4 million people. It would be a nice city to walk around except for the traffic which leaves visible pollution in the air. The foot path traffic is also chaotic as pedestrains share it with bikes, battery powered mopeds! What is nice about this city is that a) there seems to be no desire to hassle us for money - we can explore shops and walk around to our hearts content and b) there is a strong community feel here. In many of the public areas you will find people excersising on free gym equipment or taking traditional dance classes. (I want to join in but Anthony won't let me ask :() We walked through the people's park yesterday which is a large common park which beautiful and in some areas peaceful to walk around. The park is full of people as it offers lots of activities for the locals. Besides the park itself and about a zillion teas houses in which to relax, they have open areas where again people are having dance classes (ball room as well as traditional), Kareoke machines, a kids fun park, music groups and more and more and more.
We came to Chengdu - not for public kareoke - but for the giant pandas. There is a breeding centre about half and hour out of Chengdu and it was well worth the effort. Pandas are so cute. They are more cute in real life which I didn't think was possible. Everything they do is cute even when they are bullying another panda for their bamboo. Baby panda cubs are even more cute. Yep, they are just cute.
We got to see them at feeding time, which is when they are most active. The carers place the bamboo close to the boundaries of their areas so you get to see them up close(Did I mention that they are cute?). As you can probably guess, I'm still pretty excited about seeing the pandas.
Tonight we are off the Xi'an to see the Terracotta warriors and explore the city in general. By then I am sure I will have gotten the pandas out of my system.
Take care
tanya x
