Chengdu: Buddhas, Buses and PANDAS

Here we are in Chengdu, just about to leave for Xi'an, and I have FINALLY been able to access my blog, if only for a short time.  In lieu of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, I think the internet has been particularly hard to access, if only for the sheer amount of people that must be on it...  We have been watching the English language Chinese news and it is frequently showing footage and giving updates on the situation over there.  It is always accompanied by very morbid sound and terror-inducing music (duhn duhn, duh-duh-duh-duhn duhn, etc).  I was very glad to hear that my friend Greta is safe, she is over in Japan teaching for two years.  Hopefully she will not be affected by the nuclear plant explosions at all.  It is yet another chilling reminder of our need to respect our planet and resources all over the world.

Ok, I will try very hard to put up pictures right now but I have failed on several other attempts.  Nope, failure...

We have been very busy while here in Chengdu, the main attraction being the Giant Pandas that find their home in the Sichuan province.  There is a research base with Giant pandas and Red pandas in very "natural" settings.  We visited the base on Sunday and it was quite stunning and very relaxing to see the Giant fuzzy pandas sleepily munching their bamboo talks and leaves.  They were so cute, and we were quite close to them which made for excellent picture taking.  I hope to be able to post them soon!  The red pandas are also quite cute but they reminded us of raccoons and looked like they had the potential to be rather viscous.  That was a nice morning excursion.  Later in the day, Brooke and I did some shopping and temple viewing close to the hostel while Christa took a nap.  I have loved seeing the Chinese and their Buddhism practices in temples.  It is fascinating, especially with all of the incense and candles that they use.

The day before, Saturday, we spent all day exploring the two main parks in the city center.  Saturdays usually find the parks filled with families dancing, singing, listening to music, riding rides in the mini theme parks, sipping tea and doing nothing at the tea houses, taking pictures of the spring flowers, and generally just enjoying a day off in the nice weather.  I was most intrigued by the adult to child ratio as we wandered through the park.  In general, each child had about three to five adults accompanying them through the park.  Now, I knew the one-child policy is in effect, but it was very interesting to see it actually in practice... meaning it was stunning to realize that when these kids grow up and have their own child, there will no longer be cousins in the family.  Like, at all.   Plus, in my opinion, all of the children will have amazing superiority complexes and grow up being very spoiled and smothered with attention and affection, being used to having their own way but also under a tremendous amount of pressure to do well and be the best at absolutely everything.  All of this was heavily on my mind throughout the day, and made my head spin.  It's quite possible that the US will need to curb the population growth at some time as well, will that happen within our lifetimes?

On Monday we took a tour to the ancient town of Ping Le, and we were happy to discover that the tour guide was born and raised in the town, and that we would be visiting her family's tea plantation.  Our guide's English name was Ginger, and she was very nice and spoke English well.  We wandered around the town a bit, got to see a beautiful 1500 year old tree (which I immediately fell in love with) and sampled some local sweet bread.  The highlight was definitely the tea plantation, though.  We had a delicious meal with Ginger's family, traditional Sichuanese food (though not too spicy) and then went out to practice picking the shoots from the bushes that were to made into green tea, the beverage that the Chinese drink more frequently than water.  It was neat to learn more about the origin of tea, and the countryside was beautiful, the fresh air a sweet release from the days in the clogged, polluted city.

Yesterday we took a minibus to the city of Leshan, where the main attraction is a giant Buddha carved into the cliffs at the meeting of three major rivers in central China.  I believe the giant Buddha and it's fellow miniature Buddhas carved into the cliff side were carved around 700 AD, the giant Buddha being some 100 meters high!  It was quite remarkable.  We started out on top of the cliff and ttrekked down a tiny thin and steep trail to reach the foot of the Buddha.  There were railings and stairs, but it was quite exhilirating and anxiety inducing as it felt as though we would be pushed off the cliff by the rocks jutting out at any given moment.  It was beautiful though, we really enjoyed it.

Today we found a lovely English bookstore that we spent about six hours in since we had our morning coffee. midday snack, and late afternoon supper while reading varying books for loan.  It was quite marvelous, and very satisfying to hold real books since we all have our electronic books on the trip.

Tonight we take an 18 hour train ride and will arrive in Xi'an around 3pm tomorrow.  Hopefully it is just the three of us in our soft sleeper compartment because we plan on sleeping in as late as possible.

Okay, I am troubled to sign off so early but my time is running out and we need to get to the train station.  As I said, I will try to put up pictures at the next hostel... hopefully I can make it work!  I think this computer is just too old....

Lots of love!
Maia