After our train ride recovery which included hot pot (spicy stew-your-own-food) and a massage, we made plans to see the famous pandas in Chengdu. The next day we were immersed into the world of pandas and I probably heard more "Aww, how cute" than you'd hear next to a group of high school girls looking at a smiling baby monkey next to a sleeping kitten. But they are strange animals to be sure and they really do just lounge around and eat. To the point that they almost looked set up in certain positions in the park. They will go where the bamboo is and they will just chow down. But they were just so cuuute. There was a moment when a baby panda was stuck trying to climb up, little back feet clawing the air for a foothold that just wasn't there, or when one looked over the edge too far and fell down three feet off its platform, only to be joined by his friend who didn't want to be alone up there. Way to go pandas.
I myself was satisfied with seeing them from a fairly close distance and getting some great pictures of them. But if you really wanted the full experience you could have dropped one thousand kuai (over $120) and gotten a picture while holding a baby panda. Worth it? To some. Not to me. After we seeing the adult pandas and the babies, we moved on to see the red panda, related in name only. It looked like a legitimate Pokemon. That's all I can saw about it.
At the end of the trip was a museum of the history of the pandas in China, with a very horribly done taxidermied animals section, where eyes appeared to be rotting out of the head of the animals and a flying squirrel was placed on the ground with arms and legs splayed. Not realistic and not even necessary, but then again I couldn't read anything, so maybe there was some relevance to a stuffed ram and a stuffed flying squirrel in a panda museum. My guess is that it was just trying to balance out the cuteness factor of the real guys.
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