What’s black and white all over?

15 November 2014 –

We hopped on a plane late Friday night – out of the new Tianjin airport terminal. ***Wow!  It's nice, big, and has everything I could ever want… like Starbucks. Yes, I'm laughing out loud at myself. Whoever thought that Starbucks would be The Thing that elicits gasps of joy when I find one??? Silly. I know.***

We just desperately needed to get out of Tianjin and see something new. And, at the same time, cross something off another destination from our China Bucket List. 

Where to this time???

Chengdu!

You might be asking yourself, "Astrid, what's in Chengdu?" and the answer is very simple…."PANDAS"!!!!!

Pandas, or xiong mao 熊猫 as it's known in Chinese, live in a very tiny pockets of wild habitats near Sichuan province (which Chengdu is the main city).  No, we didn't see the pandas in the wild.  That would have been AWESOME. Instead, we checked out the cute pandas (and yes, they ARE CUTE) at a place called Xiong Mao Ji Di (xiong mao literally translates to "bear cat").  

We stayed in a really beautiful hotel called Buddha Zen Hotel in a walking area of Chengdu.  It was very close to a Wenshufang Monastery (about a five minute walk away).  

I read on trip advisor's website that we should get to the panda place early in the morning, after they open at 8am to beat the throngs of Chinese tourists. Hence…the slightly grumpy looks from fellow family members when they were told they couldn't sleep in on Saturday morning (when we arrived very late the previous night).  Can you blame them?  No.

The adequate breakfast bar…not many choices but still excellent:

View from our hotel room balcony:

Heading out in search of a taxi:

 

 What is it about Chengdu?  It was actually EASY to get a taxi!  The cab driver understood perfectly where we wanted to go.  Completely different experience than  taxi drivers in Xi'an or Beijing.  It took us thirty minutes to get to this place:

The Giant Panda Breeding Research Base (or…Xiongmao Jidi):

We bought tickets here….and even though the girls attend school here in China only CHINESE students get a discount.  Meh.  

Here's a map of the complex:

As soon as we walked through the gate we saw these electric carts- easy and fast way to zip to the bigger, more interesting locations.  We bought our 10 RMB per person ticket and immediately hopped on to one electric cart and off we went (with no idea where the first drop off would be!).

Oh look! It's a panda!!!!

And here are a few more pandas:

Two silly girls with two pandas huddled in the background:

We walked into one of the big buildings here and looky looky at what we saw!!!:

Narcoleptic toddler pandas!

Cute toddler pandas!!!

Back outside again…

I wonder what all THOSE people (in photo below) are ooooohing and aaaaaaaaaahing at.  Shall we go have a look???

Eeeeeep!!!  It's a heap of adorable toddler pandas.  They. Are. So. Cute!!!  I can't stop myself from taking a bazillion photos.  The people in the blue suits seem to be videotaping the little ones movements.  Some of the littles have just given up- they appear to be asleep in a pile-o-pandas.  There are just a few that are wiiiiiide awake and motoring around in their enclosure.   They make the cutest little grunting sounds.  Odd, I wasn't expecting them to make any sounds at all….I was wrong!

 

The little one standing up was really interested in grabbing a hold of the branch of the small tree next to him.  He nearly got it…when he tumbled over.  Silly little bear!  (at one point it looked like he was climbing on top of his nearby companion to get a closer vantage point but that it ended up with some tumbling and grumbly, grunting noises). 

Okay, I think those little pandas *might* have been the highlight of our visit here at the panda place.  We observed them for quite some time…until the hoards of people caught up to us (a big, huge wave of incoming Chinese tour groups got us moving on to the next location).

 

Here's a big panda for you to look at (their habitats are pretty nice, aren't they?):

Here come the food (bamboo) trucks:

It seemed that the pandas did one of three things while we were observing: 1) eating:

2) sleeping (these creatures just seemed to have collapsed wherever they were at and fell asleep):

 

 

 

and 3) slowly walking about their enclosure:

 

And yes…Po (from "Kung Fu Panda") was everywhere (here on an electric cart):

A sitting panda…contemplating his kung fu moves:

 

Here is another narcoleptic panda:

After taking two rides on the electric carts we tried walking on the roads in the park.  A wee bit frustrating was the fact that they didn't hand out maps at the entrance to the panda park.  They do have a few signs at various points along the roads but some of them are worn to the point that it's difficult to read them.  Thankfully it's not a huge place so no real worries about getting lost.  (My only problem is that I hurt my left hip, leg, knee on a long run that I went on nearly one month ago.  The pain does damper my usual enjoyment for walking and traveling.  :-( )

The nice thing about Chengdu is that it's still GREEN here.  Most of the leaves have fallen off the trees in Tianjin (or are getting close to losing them) but it's still very much green here.  Check out this thick, lush stand of bamboo:I can't guess who this sign was meant for.  Regardless, it's a beautiful quote:  

Walking towards one of the red panda exhibits

It's Master Shifu!

In this particular enclosure the red pandas are welcome to wander around freely. However, there are a few signs posted that these creatures do NOT like having their space encroached upon (they can be aggressive if you get too close to them):

 

 Not related to the photos I posted but we saw several red pandas curled up in the trees (maybe taking a nap???).  

 

Walking around the complex again – trying to hit all the main panda exhibits before the throngs of people (who appeared to be arriving).  

Here are some more juvenile pandas for you:

There were so many people watching these pandas that they ONLY way I could see them was by holding my camera up and taking a photo of them.  (yes, it's getting crowded):

Checking out one of the overpriced souvenir stands:

Ah!  More little pandas! Two of them…hanging out in a tree!  

Hey!  Catch that sunbeam!

Since it appears that the crowds really have arrived at the panda place we're slowly making our way to the exit via a quick look at this lake (with black swans):

Beautiful black swans, geese, and loads of koi fish…all ready to greedily gobble up at any food bits tossed them.  I think the fish are scarier than the birds!

Ava has just passed through this living gate – we're heading to take a quick look at the rose garden:

Such a lovely location!

Panda sculpture:

Well, that was interesting and I'm ever so thankful that my family grudgingly agreed to get up early in the morning to see the panda place.  I don't think it would have been as much fun if we'd gotten there an hour later.  

Mercifully, it was very easy getting a taxi at the panda place.  We decided to head back to the hotel.  Here's a photo while riding in the taxi:

After we got dropped off we walked around for a wee little bit.  The area around the hotel are walking streets lined with shops, restaurants and other things…including this poor turtle on a leash.  The man in the nearly black uniform was harshly nudging the poor creature with his foot.  Hmpf.  I do dispprove of kicking animals.

This lady advertised fresh sugar cane juice.  We asked her to make us two cups of it.

The sugar cane juice extraction machine…Yes, it's a VERY sweet drink (too sweet): 

More street goodies roasting away…looks like corn, peanuts, water chestnuts, sweet potatoes and not sure what else (we did see a few regular chestnuts roasting):

The entrance to our hotel: Our hotel room.  I'm very thankful that this hotel can, for a small fee, provide you with single folding beds.  So much nicer for the girls and they can be in our room with us:

 I really liked the pretty painted ceramic sink bowl in the bathroom (it was the only spot of color in the otherwise black, white and gray bathroom):

A view of the hotel's tranquil courtyard (we're on the third floor…no elevators here.  Oww! My poor leg!):

After our quick potty stop at the hotel we were back outside, checking out all the shops.  By the by, Annika is a magpie.  Did you know that?  She's attracted to all things shiny.  ;-)  The shop in the below photo had lots of rocks and semi-precious stones (along with a stuffed sea turtle hanging on the wall. Whaaaaat????):

We're ready for something to eat so picked out one of the bigger food stands (that actually had an indoor kitchen and seating as well).  The balls on a stick in the below photo??  Those are a sugary fried dough treats that the girls fell in love with:

Yummy noodles and dumplings:

and more dumplings and different noodles.  All delicious!

A quick peek into the kitchen.  Lots of veggies, pots and pans:

Random table in one of the outdoor restaurant seating areas.  Peanuts?  Really???

So this is something we didn't try (tummies were too full).  As best we could guess is that the "chef" had balls of glutinous dough/rice that he artfully tossed into this basket that contained a flour-like substance.  There were a few honey bees crawling over this basket so our guess is that it must have been a sweet substance.

This area also seems to sell lots of silver jewelry.  Here's the first shop we went into where we got to watch young man working with silver:

And here's another man in a different shop working with silver to create a pretty bracelet.  

The start of the bracelet:

We heard that Chengdu is supposed to be famous for its tea houses.  Hot tea sounded pretty good to us so we decided to go check out a tea place.

We didn't know what to order so we ended up with four glasses filled with weeds.  I mean tea.  More specifically, two were jasmine tea and the other two glasses were green tea.

Tell me, how do you drink this without getting a mouth full of green, bitter tasting weeds?  You don't.  Blech.  I love tea but I prefer it to be strained.

I don't think we finished our glasses of tea.  The tea with jasmine was definitely more palatable than the one with just green tea.  The jasmine smelled so beautiful…it reminded me of my brief visits to southern France.  Mmmmmm….such a lovely fragrance.

Back at the hotel.  I took a long nap (I'm not kidding when I say my leg hurts and it's slowing me down quite a bit).  I've also had trouble sleeping lately so getting these few hours of sleep felt sooooo good.  Funny to come all the way to Chengdu to feel like I got some rest but- for me – that's the case.  

We decided to eat at the restaurant in the hotel instead of venturing out in search of a restaurant.   I do think that was a wise and easy decision.  Maybe it cost a little bit more but it also made for a more relaxed evening meal.  

Here's a beautiful statue in one of the hotel's courtyards (which is open to the elements) on our way to the restaurant (which also happens to be the same room the breakfast was held in):

We tried a few Sichuan dishes: ma po tofu, a lovely soup with loads of noodles and hua jiao (that's that numb and spicy pepper…which I think is called Sichuan Pepper), a vegetable dish, and sweet and sour pork.  All yummy.  I think my favorite was the soup with the noodles. 

It's too early to turn in for the night so we went for a quick stroll outside in the dark:

Our hotel all lit up for the evening:

After a quick stroll around it was time for bed.  Tomorrow we'll check out a couple more places here in Chengdu before heading back to the airport and flying back home to Tianjin.