Chengdu Remembered

(Molly & Ms. Arkin)

Day One

Finally, we got to the part we had all been looking forward to: the Panda Breeding Center! Pandas have interestingly changed over time from omnivores to herbivores. The reason being they were too slow to catch animals. Now they dine on 40 pounds of bamboo a day, only a fraction of which their stomachs can actually digest. At the breeding center, 9 pandas were born in September so they were pretty small and cute. They were surprisingly klutzy, and moved very slowly. All they do is eat, sleep, and climb (Steve’s dream life). One of them was in isolation because he had a cold. When we left this panda, his keepers were trying to get him down from a tree so they could give him his medicine. We made a big loop around the park and half an hour later, they were still trying to get him down! We each paid 50 yuan (about 7 dollars) to hold and take a picture with a red panda. It was pretty small, and very furry, but looked more like a raccoon than a panda. The panda is actually a cross between a raccoon and a bear. Our guide told us a myth about how pandas got their black spots. A girl died saving a panda and at her funeral all the pandas came wearing black arm bands. They had to rub their eyes so much to dry the tears that their eyes turned black. Then they hugged each other and their arms turned black too.

After the pandas we went to a museum of ancient bronze works, but it was kind of a disappointment after getting to spend the morning watching baby pandas play.

Our hotel in Chengdu was our favorite because the rooms were huge and we got hbo!


Day Two

We drove to Leshan, where we saw the world’s biggest Buddha. It actually did not impress us as much as the Lantau Island Buddha, because it was carved into the face of a cliff, as opposed to gleaming atop a mountain.

Day Three

We drove to Mt. Emei, which is one of the three sacred Buddhist mountains in China. It is dedicated to one of the Buddhisatvahs. We took a cable car part of the way up the mountain and then walked up to a Buddhist temple, which was very beautiful. Inside Buddhist temples it is forbidden to take pictures. We also saw monkeys on the wall of the temple, which were pretty cute. As we left the temple, monkeys were congregated in a corner, and we at first mistook them for people. One of the big, ugly ones came over and started digging around for food in Steve’s pocket and Candice’s bag. Candice was traumatized. On top of the initial shock of being mugged by a monkey, it was raining so the monkeys hands were very muddy. Then Jill and Candice took the cable car back down the mountain to wait for Molly and Steve to hike down in the rain with the monkeys. Eventually we all met up with our guide, Han, and drove back to Chengdu since we had a 10pm flight to Xi’an.

Since we had time to kill before our flight, we went to a shopping area in downtown Chengdu. It was quite modern and for dinner we had McDonalds. Steve ate 20 chicken McNuggets. Gross.