Peaking into the panda nutrition center we saw workers washing off bamboo and piling it in this wheel barrow. Don't know how this is any better than the growing bamboo we see the pandas eating in their enclosures.
Our first glimpse of a giant panda, munching away while perched on his bamboo walkway. Pandas eat HUGE amounts of bamboo every day. Our guide, Terrence, told us that the type of bamboo the pandas eat is called arrow bamboo which is thinner than a lot of other bamboo.
The pandas look as cute and cuddly in person as they actually are as stuffed animals!
Can you spot the cutie in the tree?
We went from these outdoor enclosures to a large window that looked into the nursery. I think we spent a good hour or more watching the baby pandas being bottle fed, one by one, and then playing in their pen. Two large baby play pens were joined together, and that is where about 10 baby pandas were sleeping and playing. Photos were not allowed, so nothing to document the playful antics that kept us laughing and laughing. There was one little guy who really had a feisty personality. He had figured out that he could navigate one corner of the playpen to get him up and almost out of the pen. The woman who was the keeper was so patient, kind and gentle and would catch him just as he was about to slide over the side. Then another cub was climbing an opposite corner and she was back and forth trying to keep these busy cubs in the pen. Just like toddlers learning to walk or climb, these cubs repeated their antics over and over and over and over. We could have stayed all day, but we headed on to a movie that told of the difficulties of survival of pandas today, and lots of information about their lives, habitat, etc. Then on to these red pandas which looked far from any idea of a panda we had.
We happened to be at this enclosure at feeding time, and the red pandas knew it as they kept looking for the food delivery.
After the panda park, we had about a two hour drive to our next tour site, Dujiangyan Irrigation System, so we made a roadside stop for some delicious oranges that were lined up along the road. Pummelos, a Chinese New Year's fruit along with the orange, were also in abundance and delicious. A pummelo is a large oversized looking grapefruit with three skins; very difficult to peal to get down to the pithy goodness.
We finally made it to Dujiangyan City and another feast. We do seem to move from food to food, each a feast of yummies. Here Ridley is serving up one of Storey's favorites, won ton soup. Perfect for a cold day and cold restaurant! You may have noticed that in many restaurants the coats never come off!
Outside the entry gates to the Dujiangyan Irrigation System we were invited to buy some shoe inserts from this lovely lady.
We were also the source of great staring from this group of gentlemen. I decided to "look" right back at them.
Once again, beautiful gardens before the main event. I wanted to record this garden edging, maybe something to copy back home. Rocks enfolded in bamboo weaving with colorful cabbages enhancing the border.
Not just any trees can adorn a national site.
Paige sitting on a sculpture depicting one of the marvels of the irrigation system, something called the "lying iron." Li Bing, the governor of the area in 250 B.C. and the architect of the project, discovered the proper depth the rivers should be to flow effectively, and laid iron down so that every time dredging was done, they would know when to stop dredging when they reached the iron lying at the bottom of the river.
More beautiful gardens with its own little irrigation system, warming us up for the big one!
The garden was lined with important men from over the centuries from this area. The girls wanted to be recorded with the best of them.
OK. Here we are at the first view of the Irrigation System, and at the cost of boring you, I will give you a bit of history of this World Heritage site and one of China's Scenic Spots. The peoples of the Chengdu Plain have a reputation of being lazy, and it is because of this irrigation system that brought great prosperity to the "Land of Abundance" with a bumper harvest every year in spite of any drought or flood, instead of bringing harm to the people as it did in the ancient times (ancient being pre-250 B.C.!).
In the middle of Minjiang River, a dyke was built to divide the river into two parts. An inner river and an outer river with two spillways at the end of the water dividing dyke to control the flooding and the silt. There are three projects that made this operation complete: fish-mouth-like water dividing dyke, a spillway for discharging flood and silt, and a channel that was cut through a mountain as a water inlet. (from my guidebook!)
The dyke can divide the Minjiang river with 40% going to the inner river in flood season and 60% to the outer, and vice versa in the dry season. How it all works is amazing, and I will leave it at that for you, but it was a facsinating and cold experience! Really a wonder, this complicated operation engineered over 2200 years ago.
I am jumping ahead to Chengdu, day IV, where we had a morning to ourselves where we explored nearby Tibet street where we were having our laundry done. All the shops along a couple of streets contained goods from Tibet, monks robes, paintings, jewelry. There were a couple of very aggressive children begging for money, one of which would not let go of Storey. I had to pry him off. Storey was very gracious about it. And then there was this beautiful family that let me take their picture. Storey found a giant stuffed bear for Paige for Christmas, and hid it away (not really) in a plastic bag to surprise her on Christmas day. The trinkett Christmas shopping has begun!
In the afternoon our guide took us to the Temple of the Marquis of Wu right outside our Jin Li street area.
A beautiful area, and also great Christmas shopping. This is Paige with the artist of a carved turtle that she bought Ridley for Christmas.
We then boarded our comfort bus and headed for the airport and our evening flight to Guilin. Storey was hunkering for chicken, and conveniently there was a KFC at the airport where she indulged. There were also fresh fruit stands in the airport, and more oranges and pummelos were in order. Ridley and I shared a bowl of noodles to go - big cup of soup containers that you just add water to. Perfect!
They look like real world travelers finding any spot to eat their oranges and relax!
Not much warmer in the airport. We are all sporting our jackets while Storey never seems to be cold and runs around in short sleeves everywhere!
We arrived in Guilin at about 9pm and were met by Jessie, our wonderful guide for the next few days. We boarded a not so comfort bus in the freezing, foggy Guilin weather (which is in the south and we were hoping for tropical temperatures for the holidays!), and headed to Long Shan, a reported 1.5 hours away, which was really about 2 plus. We went on windy mountain roads, finally pulled off onto a smaller road, and wound around some more until the van parked. It was almost midnight, freezing, and we were met by about 4 small women who had baskets and loaded our luggage onto their backs. They hiked our luggage up while we hiked up to our village and hotel, Liquing, for about 20 minutes, bypassing the stray water buffalo dung along the way. Fortunately, Ridley, the Eagle Scout, was prepared with some flashlights that he passed out to every other person that helped us navigate the stone steps in the pitch, foggy dark. It was an exciting adventure, to be continued in the next blog!
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