chengdu and leshan: stressful visa extension and PANDAS, PANDAS, PANDAS!!

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Chengdu!! (Michael here) I DID NOT WRITE MICHAEL HERE!!! KATIE IS A LOSER!!!

the flight into chengdu was easy and comfortable. when we arrived we managed to get to our hostel lazy bones with ease. that night we met up with shane and had some food and beers. a few hours past when a very rude, tall, drill sargent type american came storming into the bar complaing that the wifi was too slow! he then approached us 3 and asked for a light for some insencts sticks as there were new arrivals in his room. when he left to go back to his room i realised the new arrivals could be us!! after a couple more drinks we decided to have a early night so we headed back to our room. on the way down we could smell the insencts getting stronger and stronger, this sent me and katie in to histerics. we opened the door and there he was on his bed watchin a film on his laptop very very loudly. USE HEADPHONES. as we were getting ready for bed he asked/told us "why are you going to sleep, its too early to go to bed" (it was 22:00) we did explain that we needed to catch a bus at 8am. he didnt care and continued to watch his film with no headphones. when the film finally finished around 23:15 (it sounded crap by the way) he rang his girlfriend and spoke very loudly to her for another 45mins. finally he turned everything off and he managed to sleep straight away. we know this because 5 mins later he was snoring so loud you prob heard it in england. what a W****R.
Next day (27th sept) we somehow managed to get up, find the bus station and get the right one to leshan to see the buddah and extend our visas. after 2 hours on the bus we got off and went to get a taxi to our hotel. on the bus we read in LP about scams of unoffical taxis in normal cars ripping people off so get the official taxis and you will be fine. what they should say is everyone rips you off in leshan! our "taxi" driver dropped us off at what we thought was our hotel, on the way in i realised this wasn't it and the taxi driver had vanished. we were had no idea where we were, no one spoke english, it was raining and we had our big backpacks! while looking for our hotel we were appraoched by 3 different people giving us cards to go to the hotel we were dropped off at. 1.5 hours later we found it. we had a quick 10min rest as we wanted to get our visas sorted so we could get out this dump! we had the address in the LP so got another taxi (we wanted it over and done with) and off we went. we pulled up outside the extension office???? when we got out a guard came running out and ran after the taxi as it was the wrong place. the guard gave us the worlds worse map only had a arrow pointing to the address. once again we were lost in the rain but with no backpacks. wandering around looking like idiots, katie approached 3 old little ladies and we attempted to ask for directions by pointing and using the phrase book in the LP. it didnt work, they gave up trying to tell us where to go and one of them decided to walk us there, which took 45mins. Gettiing the visa done was easy we just had to fill a form and go back the next day. needless to say we got the bus back cost 10p and we didnt get lost.

at night we went looking for a decent looking resturant which didnt have live animals outside it. we were approached by a man called mr yang who invited us to have food with him (dont worry he was in the LP). so we sat in his living room eating home cooked food while listening to his tales of china.

28th sept 2011

we got a BUS to the big buddah (his ears were 7meters long) gave in to a tasty KFC and collected our visas before heading back to chengdu. we arrived in chengdu and hunted for mix hostel which took about 30mins to find, when we got there we were shattered and just wanted a shower but they had no rooms. lucky they rang there "sister" hostel Lazy bones and they had two beds so off we went.

BAD NEWS!!! the only beds left were back with the american, we attempted to speak to him but was just ignored on numerous occasions.

29th sept 2011
Had a very relaxing day in the city. it was very hot so we went to peoples park which was lovely and got even better at 14:00 when there was amature dancing from a group of 55+ yr olds in skin tight leather. Dont worry photos will be up soon!!!
we also managed to tut and walk off british style when a lady tried to sell us a bottle of coke for 35y (3.50 pounds) so we offered 3y as normal price but she refused to lower the price. needless to say we walked 30seconds down the road and brought one for 3y (30p). later that night we booked a panda volunteer trip which kept katie very happy and excited like a child on xmas eve.

30th sept 2011

-Xmas day??-
opps sorry panda day. katie woke up at 4am!!!

over to Katie to talk about pandas!

I love pandas!!! they are awesome!!

We left hostel early to meet the pandas. We were in a group with 5 other people from our hostel who were from Holland. They were a nice group of people to be with and of course they all spoke amazing English. When we arrived at the Panda park we were greeted by our guide and the we were taken to see a "beautiful" lady panda then grandad panda and then 6 teenage pandas (aged about 4 human years). The teenage pandas were soo cool and had so much personality - they were all living together but will be seperated when they get older. One of these pandas was called "meatball" and we were told he is a "bully," one of the others was used to create Kung Fu panda from the film, two were twins, one male one female, who was very fussy about food(as if pandas could be any more fussy about food!)

We were able to feed thge pandas using bamboo sicks to out food on and lower to them when they were outside. When they were inside we fed them from about 1 metre away. It was brilliant, they were so funny, especially meatball who kept stealing the other pandas food and pushing them out of the way. At one point he "bitch slapped" Kung Fu panda to get a piece of apple!
I was completely in ove with them all and even Michael was loving them and their funny ways. We both decided being a pnda would be pretty cool-just laying around and eating all day. Pandas make a weird noise as well - not what you would expect. It was kind of like a sheep/goat/horse noise.

After feeding time we cleared out their sleeping quarters which were very messy. Although most of their poo is just made up of bamboo so wasn't too smelly (not like what can be said for the human toilets in China!)

We had a chance to do some more feeding and watching them play and chill out. We also got to sample panda cake which we had been feeding them, it wasn't very nice and I could understand why the fussy female twin did not like it!

We had lunch then got to see the rest of the park with the guide. We saw lots of lovely lovely pandas and red pandsas which are really cool, very different to the great pandas, much smaller, longer tails and much much faster!!

We also got to see some very small baby pandas, who were only a few months old and we got to learn a bit more about the park and the work they undertake there. We watched a short video which included quite a graphic part about reproduction and birth of pandas...a little disturbing, especially when they showed "successful" attempts at reproduction between a male and female and "unsuccessful" attempts which involved a female panda battering the male panda!!

After this Michael very kindly bought me a fantastic early birthday present and I got to have a hug with a one year old panda! See photos for proof!!

Brilliant day....

That night we had to change hostel so we went off to Mix (again) and after a shower we joined a free dumpling party where we made our own dumplings. We met some cool people, including a great couple from England Dan and Bella. Dan is also into football coaching and supports Arsenal so Michael was vhappy. This made up for the fact that there was yet another person there who had done a psychology degree! We also met a Dutch guy who is a pro poker player and competes in the world series "The highest I've ever won is only 30K" (on one hand). He was really nice as was his girlfriend. We spent the evening eating our dumplings which we re ptretty good and drinking beer.

Next few days were just doing sightseeing anfd chilling in Chengdu. At night we ate the spicy Sichaun food, including a proper hot pot one night. This is where there is a huge pot of chillis/broth/peppercorns/ginger etc boiliung on the table. You then order some meat veg and you throw it in and cook it yourself. It was pretty spicy.

On 2nd October (during China's national holiday which is very hectic!) we hit the night market OMG! On the way to the market we encountered lots of cars and motorbikes driving on the pavement because the traffic wlights were on red....obvious thing to do really! They kept coming up behind us pretty fast beeping away, so we had to be pretty quick on our feet. The market itself was pretty average, but the amount of people and traffic there would make you think it was amazing. There were so many people, this was one of the times when we really realised just how many people there are in China. At one point it took us 20minutes to walk around a corner that should have taken 30 secinds. We have a good picture or to of this, where you can see Michael's head towering above the thousands of Chinese!

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