Despite Chengdu not being that far from Beijing on a map of China, it was still a 2 1/2 hour flight. Yep, China is massive. The hostel I've stayed at here (Mix backpackers) has been awesome. Much more lively than the one in Beijing, and dead cheap too. You can get a large bottle of beer and a really good meal for just under a pound. Also took advantage of their extensive and impressive pirate DVD collection on a day off from doing/seeing stuff. In truth, I've done pretty much sweet FA in the time I've been here, just relaxed. I did take a quick trip downtown to see their massive Mao statue - that little guy gets everywhere!

And, of course, I went to see the pandas at the research centre. The Chinese absolutely love their pandas. They're so proud that they're the one country that has them naturally, and think everyone thinks that they're amazing for trying to save them. Well, not quite China. We all think it's your fault for killing the poor bastards in the first place (putting aside the creature's basic design faults.) So, you know, just think about that before you start errr, getting all about loving yourselves for it. And stuff. Anyway, They've got something like 70 or 80 pandas there, and they're trying to breed more. They've even got a panda sperm bank, and unnecessarily showed a film about how they got it. It seems Rebecca Loos really will do anything for money.

The one thing we were told at the hostel about the research centre, was that the pandas really didn't do much, but there was one cheeky chap that spends his whole time on show just rubbing his ass against things. Kind of like a panda pole dancer. With this in mind, we set out. The first panda we came to walked about a bit and then just sat in a Tyre and looked at us. He didn't really seem to fit the hippy-ish mantra on the sign by his enclosure: "love me, don't bother me." He looked more likely to say something like: "I've just spent the night being sexually molested by Chinese scientists. I'll be honest, I'm not in the best of moods. I just want to sit in my Tyre. And I want you to f**k off."

Having gleaned this information from his eyes, we moved on. And there he was, already in the midst of his ass-rubbing routine, and with an excitable crowd already gathered. We were there for about 5 minutes, and the whole time he rubbed his ass. I've even got video footage (I know that Murph (T) likes a bit of sexual panda). He began on a tree stump, which had the crowd a little concerned that it may disappear where the sun doesn't shine, before moving onto one of the legs of his climbing/lounging frame. A star is born.

There were also newborn panda twins in an incubator, who were only a few weeks old. Though, as me and Dave (a scouser from my hostel) discussed, they could just be painted rats, displayed to satisfy stupid tourists.

Then, in the evening, came the hotpot. It's apparently a Sichuan speciality (Sichuan being the province that Chengdu is in). I went out for this with an American guy, a Danish girl, and Dave the Scouser. Dave is just about to start a year in China as part of his degree (Oriental Studies at Edinburgh), and so has already done 2 years of Chinese. This made him the orderer. We eventually picked a restaurant, and took a seat. Built into the centre of the table was a massive burner, which would keep the large hotpot wok-thing hot throughout the meal. The way it all worked was that you ordered a bunch of ingredients, a spicy stock was brought out in the wok, accompanied by a few veg, and you then added the ingredients to the hotpot as you wanted them. When they're cooked, you fish something out with your chopsticks, dip it in some sauce, and eat it.

When the menu arrived in Chinese, naturally Dave was entrusted to sort it all out. Our only input was "just normal meat stuff. Maybe beef. Oh and some mushrooms would be good. And no weird things like heads or feet." Had we been able to understand Dave's conversation with our waitress, where he said "what would you recommend," and then went with that without understanding what it actually was, we wouldn't have been quite so surprised when the ingrediants worked their way out. Mushrooms, good; cabbage, ok; spring onions, fine; weird meaty clumps, should be alright; then something greeny brown, smooth one side and spiky on the other.
"WTF is that Dave?"
Dave puffs his cheeks, exhales and shakes his head, before composing himself.
"Looks like stomach lining or something doesn't it?"
"I tell you what it doesn't look like. It doesn't look like beef."
"It could be from a cow. And I think those clumps of meat are beef anyway."
"Don't you know what you ordered?"
"Some of it. I'm still not great understanding the characters. We did more ancient characters at uni. This is more modern stuff."
And then the piece de resistance. Wobbling in on a bed of lettuce, sliced into 4 quarters, a pink, slimy brain.
"Is that what I think it is??!"
"Umm....I'll just check the menu again....Of course, I should have recognised the character for brain. But it says it's brain flower. Not sure what animal that'll be from then. But you've got to try it haven't you."
"Nope."
And I was good to my word. I occasionally bobbed for some of the strange meat, or vegetables, but it was left to Dave and the Dane to eat the brain, and Dave alone to try the weird carpet thing. Both, apparently, were not that great.

The next morning, I set off for Leshan and the Giant Buddha.

written by  olliejohnson on August 19, 2006 from Chengdu, China
from the travel blog: A man from Cockshutt.
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Could you please elaborate on why my brother likes abit of sexual panda? Should I be concerned?

written by  Helen Murphy on August 24, 2006

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The first instances of Murph indulging in animal related sexual activity were recorded a couple of years ago when he was caught in a compromising situation with a sick hamster named Dublin.

From there, his sordid obsession with such acts moved swiftly to the bear kind - Koalas at first, but then larger varieties as time went on. The last i heard he was trying to "assist" in the breeding of Pandas to improve the prospects of their species as a whole.

(Source: Oliver Johnson)

written by  Keeleway on August 24, 2006

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