Goodbye HK - Hello Chengdu

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Dear all: we’ve been lazy again and for that we apologise! We are now reporting from Chengdu – the Panda’s hometown! Our last days in Hong Kong were nice, but – personally – I’d had enough of Asian cities tourism. I was looking forward to seeing another part of China. The highlight of the last couple of days we spent in the cosmopolite HK was Stanley; a village 30 minutes by bus from HK, sort of sunny (hurray!), with a nice market (not cheap though), cool views towards a bay with a beach and quite close to Aberdeen, the fishing village. We visited its Maritime Museum (interesting fact: Japan was the first ASIAN country to cross the Pacific in the 17th Century with a vessel whose design was inspired by the Dutch) and observed the many similarities between Chinese boats (Qing Dynasty) and European boats – only difference, as far as I could tell, were the planking on the sails. I tried to play a couple of games (they love combining games and museums in this country), such as sending a message in Morse code, failing miserably. Must not leave my day job to be a sailor!! The way back on the bus was a funny one; we were stuck in traffic, being a Friday and rush hour, and a little girl sat next to us playing songs on her phone (everyone is glued to their phones here, like us in Europe I guess!!) – amongst them: The Little Mermaid and Cinderella. At first I thought it was cute but several Cinderellas later, I wanted to shout!!! Another morning, believe or not, we headed for Disney Land HK – didn’t know there was one here until we saw it on the tube’s map. It was an experience to watch Chinese parents and children beyond excited in Walter Disney’s universe. I am happy to report that we joined the group of happy families, riding the ‘Space Mountain’ and climbing ‘Tarzan’s Tree House’. Amazing to witness how adults, more than children, appeared besotted and hypnotized at the many plastic distractions in the park: constant filming of anything and everything was taking place around us. Why someone would film a plastic elephant next to Tarzan’s house (I promise, it was plastic, fake!) for 15 minutes straight, or take various pictures of squirrels Chip and Dale’s plastic impersonations, is very curious. Do they really sit back home and watch this endless filming of unanimated objects?? AND to end our adventures in HK, on the flight to Chengdu, we enjoyed 2 hours and 20 minutes of CHRISTMAS SONGS! Including: Gingle Bells, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and many others! We still wonder why they’re playing that tape over and over again in mid-October. And especially when they don’t celebrate Christmas as us! On the other hand, Halloween stuff is being sold all over the place, so not sure which calendar they follow.
Today we’re writing from Chengdu. We’ve spent 2 nights here, before starting our Panda Project. The Traffic Inn at Chengdu is basic and not very clean, but it’s full of young people (possibly on Gap Year) travelling across Asia. We’ve been taken on a tour of yet another Asian City – which was not the highlight of the day. Rather: we’ve met interesting nice people. Chloe, our new friend from UK, is travelling around the world before starting a new job in Austria this winter. Max, a writer, has come to so some research on volunteers and will write about it for a magazine when he’s back in his homeland, Switzerland. We visited a market today – fish and meat mostly – whose smell I cannot yet forget (Chloe, who is a vegetarian, promised she won’t eat fish either, from now on!) and we had dinner at a local place where they served really nice stuff (yes, meat) and some local (extremely HOT) dishes. Beware: food here is very spicy; especially what they call the ‘Hot Pot’. Tomorrow 3 bus rides await us, and we’ll be working as volunteers for 2 weeks in on of the Panda Research Bases in the area. Apparently the one we’re going to is NOT where the 12 cubs have just been born. But there are 2 ‘babies’ and hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy watching them. One of our guides, Isabella, tells us Pandas like bamboo, apples and carrots. They love peeling their bamboo before eating it, and each one has its preferences (apparently some like bamboo cakes, whilst others rejoice in simple bamboo). Pandas used to eat meat a long time ago, and they themselves were eaten by Chinese during the Great Famine. Will tell you more about them next time!!!
Love to all: B & M xxx

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