Step 13 - When the Cat's away...

This post will not satisfy Rongchyi.

Today, we have a post to fill you in on some of my latest happenings. Next post, I'll finish off the trip series. I promise. So what do I have in store today? Firstly, the Panda Base excursion. I have this sad feeling that there was more that I wanted to discuss, but for now I can't remember it. I really ought to be making notes more often, regarding blog-post ideas. Oh well. One idea just came to me! The sports carnival! Success!

PART 3.33 Recurring; PANDA BASE EXTRAORDINAIRE

To get to the Panda base from the University takes about 1 hour, maybe give 30 minutes. Everything had been organised through the Uni, so we all piled onto the arranged buses and off we went. Nothing particularly unusual to see, at least for most of the way out. What was interesting as that as we got closer to the Panda base, there were increasing signs of damage from the earthquake last year. Damaged sections of highway, crumbling roads and whatnot. Particularly amusing as traffic/road signs that originally ran over the top of the road were bent and buckled, to such an extent that our buses were only just able to pass through - even with the roof ventilation flaps down, the sign scraped across the top. Amusing for we the passengers of course, I'm not so sure that the driver was thrilled about the pain swapping.

The usual swarm of vendors selling their overpriced junk.

Okay, so we get there and everyone dismounts. The usual swarm of vendors selling their overpriced junk. Cute junk, I might add, but I resisted buying a Panda head hat. Kind of similar to a scene from Tropic Thunder, for those that saw it. Anyway, we had free entry which was quite nice. There are these things called 'Panda cards' which we got given by the Uni - Basically they were introduced to encourage tourism in Chengdu after the earthquake, allowing cheap entry to certain parks around Chengdu.

Panda Panda!

First view once inside? A bitumen road and bamboo. You have to walk for about 15 minutes before seeing any sort of wildlife, or you can grab a seat on free electric buses doing laps around the inside of the park. I assume they were free anyway. So what can be seen at the Panda Base? Baby pandas, young pandas, old pandas and red pandas. Unfortunately at the time of day we were there, between 2.30 and 4.30, it was mainly sleeping pandas. Or when we were lucky, lazily-chewing-on-bamboo pandas. I think they have a lot in common with Koala bears really. That is, I've only ever really seen them eating or sleeping. Maybe it's because they both eat crappy food - bamboo vs eucalyptus leaves. I'll let pictures do most of the talking, but it was pretty boring. Still, a nice walk in a bamboo forest looking environment. Interesting fact perhaps? They can't generate enough bamboo for the pandas on site, so they have to import.

Om nom nom.

Anyway, that's about all that happened. The weather was somewhat muggish. An American bought a bottle of Baijiu to keep the bus ride home interesting - I wasn't game on doing a lot of it, but I did a shot. Just to reiterate, it is nasty, nasty stuff. 52% is not my friend.

I got involved in this one entirely for the free tracksuit

Okay so sports carnival. Don't get excited - I wasn't involved in any events. Rather, they were collecting overseas students to take part in the opening ceremony. But I didn't know what that was going to be like until the day came. Maybe it's cheap of me to admit it, but I got involved in this one entirely for the free tracksuit we were receiving for taking part in the celebrations. It's big, comfy, and free. Delicious. On the downside, it has 海外 emblazoned across the back of it - meaning overseas, or abroad. Yeah, thanks, like people couldn't tell from my height/hair colour/skin colour/spoken languages.

People.

Okay so I've already established the tracksuit was free, but there was a sort of cost. We were told we had to be at the stadium by 7.30am. I hate getting up for class at 8.30am, let alone earlier. Furthermore, had a late one the night before. So lets just say I was feeling ... lethargic... when I got up. I also had the pleasure of two phone calls as I was getting up - One from a friend who had confused 7 with 7.30 and was wondering why no-one else was there, another from a friend who didn't know where to go. At least I was better off than my room-mate, who was still drunk from the night previous and looked increasingly seedy as every moment passed.

Walking over, it seemed we might be a little late. Turns out, we needn't have worried. We were waiting for about 30-40 minutes before things started rolling. As we were waiting though, it was interesting. There were lots of people (surprise), students I should say though, all grouped into classes. They were practicing various little performances, which was kind of cute. Anyway, after much milling around we were herded into a 5-a-row formation and led out onto the stadium. One person had been equipped with a big flag, and the front row people were carrying a banner. It was pretty amusing, while the students all had their own choreographed perfomances, we were told to wave. Can I say it just felt kind of ridiculous? Waving at pretty empty bleachers, but those Chinese people that were there? Kinda went nuts. Lots of waving, cheering and laughing ensued. In the middle of the stadium were the university bigwigs - I have no idea who they were other than apparently being the most important people.

I didn't take many pictures, but quite a few videos. Unfortunately, video is really really slow to upload and half the time it drops out and fails half way through the procedure. So I'll keep working on that. Just letting you know why there's apparently no content.

More people. Flags too.

The ceremony then dragged on for quite awhile as every class did their parade, followed by speeches by the bigwigs, then the national anthem and a flag raising. The Chinese national anthem is actually really short, and doesn't have any singing. At least, not in the version we were played. So it wrapped up around 10-ish I believe.

And this is the picture that makes the stands look relatively full...

Okay, so maybe that's about it for this post? But I'll quickly tell you about what happened after the ceremony. Some friends had decided they were going to try for bacon and eggs for breakfast. Home cooked, that is. There was an epic mission through two districts and two shopping centres in search of bacon, which we couldn't even find anyway. We got something we thought might be bacon... it was thinly cut, it was pork, and it had fat on the meat. After cooking, we realised that it was of course, meant to be used in a hotpot. It was still fine, I actually quite enjoyed it, but it wasn't bacon.

Next post I'll finish the National Holiday series for sure. This post though? It's finished now, promise. Aside from updates with video content, perhaps. :D