Chengdu-Non Pandas :)

• We arrived in Chengdu and found a taxi into the city to our hotel.

•     We went to the panda research base in the city with our tour guide Jason. He gives lots of commentary. We saw a lot of giant pandas, they were mostly eating and sleeping but super cute nonetheless. We also saw a huge forest enclosure that we could walk through that had red pandas and it sometimes the pandas  with slip out of the enclosure and walk around. There was one walking just next to us on the side walk through the forest. Before we could even stop him, Everett just reached out and stroked it while it was walking past us and didn't even turn around! It was pretty funny.

•  We walked all the way to a place called straight and narrow alleys. It is a food alley similar to the one we have down the street from us in Shanghai, but there were lots of fancy tea houses, and souvenir shops.  We did not end up finding anything we liked at the food allergies, so we walked out of them and walked on the street until we found another place that looked really good. It was really really fun, because the people who work there did not speak much English, and when we were asking if the food is spicy we got a lot of misunderstandings! But it all turned out perfectly. One of the servers taking our order was able to  comment on our order size. He said it was very very big! We agreed, and ended up having to take a lot home afterwards.

•  Dad and I got up very early, and  went to a panda research base in the countryside.  It was the CRCCGP. That stands for China research and conservation Center for the giant panda. This is where they rehabilitated injured or captured a giant pandas and are trying to get them get them back into the wild. We arrive, and went to a room where all of the volunteers were waiting and getting ready. We got a uniform, and a badge so that the staff letting visitors and, new that we got in without having to pay. We started by meeting a supervisor, Elsa. We had a group of five volunteers, and everyone  was very excited. We started by going to our "workplace"  where we would be doing most of our work. We started by cleaning out a panda enclosure. Dad and I sweat, and some people scooped poop, some people pulled weeds, and some people cleaned up eating bamboo. Then we  had to break bamboo. You take a big read of bamboo and smash it as hard as you can on the ground so it  splits down the middle or into a few pieces for the panda. Then we took a little break. Since we got free access, dad and I hopped onto a shuttle bus and took a ride through the mountains to another panda enclosure we spend a few minutes there and walked most of the way back. Then we  got to feed a panda! The panda was on the other side of the bars, and put his hand out on a surgical plate where he had to keep it the whole time to make sure that he didn't grab the food. Then we fed it right into his mouth. Our supervisor, Elsa said that this was the model panda for kung fu panda! He was very sweet. After we fed him we cleaned out his indoor enclosure, and got another little break then we ate some lunch The lunch there was very good!  The Sichuan flavors are very very awesome.  Then we cleaned out another enclosure, but this time I had to scoop poop! Dad had the privilege not to do it either of the times we cleaned out enclosures,  because he says that if he doesn't own an animal, he's not picking up after it exclamation I thought that was crazy. The last thing we did was feed another panda. This panda was three like it. The researchers have found him in the wild all scraped up and looking really bad. It looked like he had been attacked by another animal or even another panda. They had no choice but to  perform an amputation on his leg. He was still Kickin though. He was very gentle. When we fed the pandas, it was looking straight into the eyes of a puppy. They just would look at you and observe you. They were so cute! We left shortly after that, and try to rest on the hour long ride back home to the hotel. 

• We walked to a tex-mex restaurant which was amazing. We walked to Sichuan University from there. We walked to the track where there were groups dancing and children playing and people running/ walking. We walked a few laps and blew some bubbles. We stayed there a while and had so much fun with the little babies and toddlers who loved the bubbles.

• We climbed a mountain and took a cable car. We blew bubbles at the pagoda on the top of the mountain. Then we climbed down another mountain and ended up at one of the first ancient irrigation system.

• We flew home and on the subway, a man next to me kept falling asleep and coming two inches from my shoulder and then jerking his head back up. It was a vicious cycle. We made it hme safely.