Whew…

The girls were on Spring Break from BISS last week; time off that just happened to coincide nicely with Tomb Sweeping Day (Qingming Festival) on April 5.  This is a national holiday in China (honoring ancestors), so Renmin also had a bit of a break that freed up Art.  Normally, he teaches on Monday and Tuesday.  This year, Qingming fell on a Tuesday, and just a week and a half in advance of it, Art received an email: Monday classes will be taught on the prior Saturday, and Tuesday classes are cancelled.  Just like that.  Imagine telling a bunch of faculty in the US: “you will teach your Monday evening class on Saturday evening.”  Ha.  And then imagine all the students showing up on Saturday evening.  (They did.)

Anyway.  We knew we wanted to go to Chengdu (in Sichuan Province) and Xi’an (in Shaanxi Province), and this seemed like the week to do it.  So we jumped on cTrip (Chinese Expedia) and off we went.  We flew to Chengdu on Sunday (about 3 hours from Beijing) and met up with the Jacobs family at the Bookworm (a somewhat famous independent, western bookseller in China; we’ve also been to the one in Beijing).  It was great to see Mary Kaye, Bob and their daughter Nina.  We first met them in February in Kunming where the girls became fast friends, and on this trip it took them only about 17 seconds to rekindle their friendship at full steam.   The Jacobs are doing a full year (10 month) Fulbright and living in Chengdu where Bob teaches public health at Sichuan University.

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province, and a major economic hub in China, and so has many, many ex-pats living there, and consequently lots of western amenities (yes, we ate some non-Chinese meals.  Again.  See previous posts re: traveling with kids).  It’s another “big” city, though with only 4.2 million people, it is small-ish compared to Beijing.  During our three days there it was dense, overcast, a bit humid and to be honest, rather dirty/gritty (pollution is a problem everywhere in China).

I think the city’s number one major attraction must be the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda.  Not sure when the base was established (maybe 25 years ago?) but this is where animal scientists have been working on conservation and breeding… attempting to save the Giant Panda from extinction.  In addition to the real work happening here, is the adjacent beautiful park full of… well, pandas.  With two Chinese daughters, we’ve had many pandas in our midst over the last 8 years (all stuffed or in books).  We’ve also visited the pandas at the National Zoo in Washington, DC (though I think we caught them at nap time on that trip) and last year saw the delightful pandas at the San Diego Zoo.  But the Base in Chengdu was different.  The seven of us arrived at the park at 8am, and for almost a full hour, seemed to have the place to ourselves: an entire park of lovely wandering paths, with soaring bamboo canopies and a chance to get really close to many pandas.  I lost count.  Over five or six different natural habitats (that you really can get quite close to) I would guess we saw 20 or 25 pandas: adults, “sub-adults,” and babies.  And we adults enjoyed watching them just as much as the girls did.  After 9:00am or so, the tour buses began arriving and the crowds thickened a bit… but for the most part, like all of China so far, no real crowds of tourists…

One thing we had planned to do at the Base was to let the girls hold a baby panda, but on this particular day, the one and only baby available for holding had diarrhea and was declared off limits by the on-site vet.  Having used this as a bribe for many months prior to coming to China… on those days when Cece was adamant that she wanted nothing to do with living in China for five months (“But Cece, we protested, you’re going  to get to hold a baby panda!”) I thought Cece would be devastated and the day declared a disaster.  As it turned out, she was set back for about 10 seconds and then skipped off with Nina to see the red pandas.  So.  We saved $300 (holding a panda is $150 per person) and the world stayed on its axis.  The red pandas, incidentally, bear a much closer resemblance to the raccoons living in our tree in Redlands., and are fun little guys to watch…

Also in Chengdu we checked out the Jacobs apartment (living large… they have a bathtub, and two gas burners in their kitchen), ate at Peter’s Tex Mex (hello Texas pickles), walked the music district near the Chengdu Conservatory of Music (I’m aching for red Chinese drums), toured the tropical-feeling Wuhou Memorial Temple and bonsai gardens, walked the ancient, festive JinLi street, enjoyed a traditional Sichuan hot pot meal (my brother Neil would die for this) and strolled through the Tibetan area which stirred our curiosity further and made us hopeful for a chance to visit Tibet later in the trip.  All in all, a great time in Chengdu, made better by the excellent company of the Jacobs family.

Here’s the first set of Chengdu pictures, with more detail:

With the Jacobs at the Bookworm. LOVE this bookstore... where you can grab a book, flop on a couch, get a good glass of wine... and just hang out. They also have bruschetta (for me) and mac 'n cheese (for Elle)...

Wouldn't be spring break without a little bit of room service... (we also woke them super early on this day...)

Here we are...

Very quiet and peaceful strolling through this park... note Elle is catching a ride on Mary Kaye's back...

Walking backward to improve our memory...

First sighting... they were just coming around... looking for their morning food...

Another...

And another...

And...

Elle spies another...

Fun...

Munching...

It's hard not to call these guys "bears"...

Who couldn't love this face...

Morning cafeteria...

After eating they get very playful with each other...

Panda girls...

Rare sighting of a running panda...

Panda tree... there were 5 young pandas up there...

Red panda...

And there were black swans and fish to feed...

Which we did...

Dare I say they had as much fun feeding the ducks and the fish as they did seeing the pandas...

ouch...

Goodbye Chengdu duck...

Chengdu friends...

Us...

I love it when Elle beats to her own drum...

But at 7, she was so happy to have two new panda friends...

So happy that she immediately fell asleep...