Chengdu

Upon arival to the Chengdu airport, customs and baggage claim went smoothly. We met up with the rest of the group as soon as we stepped out of the baggage area. The ride to the hotel showed a lot of high-rise buildings. It was interesting to see brand new buildings directly next to very old rundown buildings. We took the rest of the afternoon to relax and get used to the climate. A walk around town led us to a small place for dinner with tasty rice and noodle dishes. Some of the other group members purchased strangely flavored lays chips including cool and refreshing cucumber, Italian red meat, blueberry, and sweet and sour fish soup; all of which were not worthy of a second purchase. After sitting around for a while getting to know each other and playing a few card games, we all retired for the night.

The hotel that we are staying at here in Chengdu is our home base, after each camping trip we will return back to this hotel. It is much less rugged than I had anticipated for we have electricity, community restrooms and showers along with internet access. The internet costs one yuen (Chinese currency) per 10 minutes. For a scale one USD is about 6.75 yuen, so everything comes at a great price! The hotel has a lovely breakfast buffet containing both western and Chinese foods. After breakfast on Wednesday morning we had orientation in a so called air conditioned room. We were provided with an itinerary and began discussion about the courses in general along with our final research paper topics. We then took a little time off before heading out to a local tea garden where we received our first lecture on conservation efforts and concerns in China. While professor Mulari lectured to us as we all sat around him many local Chinese people came to observe us. Interesting that the tourists become the sight to see.

After walking around for a bit we found a nice tea house to get the popular jasmine tea and lunch. At this location, with the purchase of tea, a majangg set is provided. As we sat around trying to learn how the game works, some older local ladies came to our assistance and stayed to guide us through an entire game. It was such a fantastic experience, for each of us at our table had a woman helping us learn the game. Though it was extremely confusing the first few games, even though we had no idea what each other were saying due to the language barrier, communication was happening readily. Once I made a good move with out suggestion my mentor gave me a thumbs up, that was a fantastic connection to have. A few games later, we felt pretty competent though there always seems to be one more rule that we didn't know of before.

The afternoon was filled with quality time with the other participants, many hours were spent just chatting away about what ever the next topic was and there never seemed to be a break in conversation. A few of us girls went out to dinner on our own and luckily we ended up with some tasty vegetarian food! It was quite an experience trying to order food with out anybody to help translate for us. Upon return to the hotel a goodbye party was happening for a group of German doctors who were here for three weeks studying Chinese medicine. Much music and goofy dancing occurred, even though we have an early morning to prepare for it was quite fun to dance around and eat fresh leche fruit together.

Tomorrow we depart for our first extended camping trip in the Tibet mountainous area. Though I had anticipated rigorous backpacking, we actually have a company meeting us each day to cook for us and we have horses to carry our packs. This is quite a bit less rough than I had prepared myself for, but I am sure the heat, bugs and terrain will still provide for some sort of physical challenge. The trip will be for about eight days, so my next post will be once we return and am very excited to get going!

Panda fact of the post:

- Giant Panda fecese contain fewer large droppings overall about ten

times larger than Red Panda fecese which contain many small droppings.