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Published: August 31st 2014
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We were up early the next day as we were off to see the pandas as the research and breeding centre. We ate our pre ordered breakfasts and took two mini vans to the centre. We were joined by two English guys, son and farther. The son had been stud typing karate at the Shaolin temple for 18 months and was heading back to the UK via the tans Siberian pass on the train.
The journey took about 30 minutes and we parked in the small car park and made our way passed empty souvenir stalls. There was only a very small queue and we were very quickly off to see the pandas. The location of the centre was on a busy main road, I thought it would be in the middle of no where as the pandas like peace and quiet. However once inside there was total peace and quiet.
The complex was pretty big and you had to walk along bamboo lined paths. We as the traditional pandas we all know and love and red pandas which have faces a bit like raccoons.
We saw big daddy and mummy pandas
behind glass partitions, a group of 18 month/2 year old pandas eating, a couple of them play fighting and the nursery where there were 3 babies in incubators and a few more asleep in play pens. We had to file pas the incubators in single file very quickly and were mot allowed to use the flash. All the pandas were very cute but I think we all favoured the traditional black and white pandas. The red pandas were all outside and were found sitting in trees, eating food, playing and sleeping.
After seeing the pandas we went to the exhibition about the research facility and the breeding programme, which included food and nutrition, breeding, habitats and behaviours and the rearing of the babies. Then we went to the exhibition about the history of pandas, their habitat, food, parasites which live in and on pandas and their predators.
From there we headed back to the minivans. By this time the queues were huge and the park had filled up with thousands of visitors. We were told by our guide that morning is the best time to see the pandas as they tend to hide and
sleep in the afternoons. Added to the fact that it was sometimes difficult to take photos of the pandas with the number of people in the park so early in the morning, so later in the day it would have been a total mare! Also the traffic on the main road was crazy. Cars had been parked along one lane of the two lanes in each discretion. Traffic cops and cones were in force and the flow of traffic was very slow.
We finally made it back to the hostel and most of us nipped to Macdonalds for lunch and half of the group headed off to see the worlds biggest Buddha. However this involved a 2.5 hour car journey each way and only 30 minutes on a boat to see the statue. We were due to catch another night train at 9.14pm so they couldn't spend any longer there.
The rest of us stayed behind and chilled and then at 2.30pm headed out to the old town which has lots of traditional style buildings. Randomly there was a basket ball game which Tim and Kirsty played, Kirsty won :-)
We
then visited the Wenshu monastery which has lots of temples dedicated to different Buddhas, we were not allowed to take photos of the deity images only the buildings, then we headed for tube and made our way to people's park by tube.
As it was Sunday and a sunny day it was very busy with families, couples etc. we wandered to the main area where a crowd had gathered to watch people dancing. Anyone could join in but none of our group wanted to join in. There was also a small fashion show which made me giggle looking at the people on the red carpet cat walk.
Then we wandered round the different areas of the park on either side of the dancing area were people singing karaoke. When we wandered around through the trees there seemed to be a dancing class on and two different couples singing both with an audience.
We then saw groups of men playing Chinese chequers and then we wandered to the mum and dad speed dating area. This is where parents go to 'advertise' their children and try a bit if match making. There are
no photos of the prospective suitors only details e.g year they were born, height, what they are like personality wise, their job and if they own a car or their own house etc and what kind of boy/girl they are looking for. If a potential suitor is chosen the child has to meet them, but doesn't have to marry them. This matching.com is done without the knowledge of the son/daughter. Currently there are more boys than girls due to the one child policy China introduced so the girls have their choice of many suitors, lucky or not so lucky depending on how you look at it.
When continued our wandering around and we saw a lady selling rabbit heads, skinned but complete with teeth! We stopped for tea and I ordered a lemon tea which was basically a glass of hot water with slices of dry lemon, sugar pieces and some herbal seeds, it was nice but not what I expected.
Whilst we were sitting we were approached to have our ears cleaned using metal rods which we placed in your ear and vibrated. I was intrigued with it but when I found out
the rods and fluffy bits on the end were not cleaned or changed I didn't want it done. However Kirsty and I did have our fortunes told, but it was more about our past, and the people around us and what kind of personalities we were. However she did tell me I would live until I was 93 some best get some more money in my pension fund lol.
We then went back to the hostel where I showered and changed. The others arrived back from the big Buddha And then we all went for dinner, then back to the hostel to collect our bags and head for the bus stop, the bus was already there so we had to run a short distance back packs and all to catch it.
The journey took 10/12 minutes
Vicky then took us to where we needed to be to get into the station and told which waiting room we needed to be in and the train number. We then had to have our train tickets and passports checked, go through and have our bags scanned. Franklin got stopped as he had a knife
in his carry on luggage. After a lot of tooing and froing, using translation apps on phones. The knife was wrapped up in paper and sellout aped like it was never to,be opened and given to John who had to give in his passport and ticket details and then we were allowed to head off.
We made our way to the large, noisy and crowded waiting room until our train was called and we joined the end of the long queues which soon moved once the gates were open. We had our tickets checked and then followed the cried through the underpass to the platform and then joined the train where our tickets were checked yet again.
Once on we found our bunks, settled in, bedded down for the night. This train was much quieter, no kids lol, Stuart remained sober, we had a snoring man taking up the 6th bed so it took us a while to head off to,sleep and he did wake us up in the night but he was a random snorer rather than all night. The toilets left much to be desired as the flushing mechanism wasn't working so
they were pretty rank by the time we got off in Xian. I had kept my water intake to a minimum to avoid having to use them too often lol.
We arrived at Xian around 12.30 ish
Xxx
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