10March2012 Saturday -- City Tour

Finally it was Saturday for our city tour to Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research
Base, Du Fu Thatched Cottage, Wu Hou Temple and JinLi Street. We were told to
assemble below our hostel by 8am. In the morning, it was cold and misty that we
could not see the buildings. This was the first time we experience with this
weather in china. In the bus, the tour guide briefly told us what we are doing
for the day and what places is a must to go. After taking 2 hours of bus to the
town, we alighted at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base. The
entrance of the place is nice and we were told to take a trail to where the
panda lived in. As we were heading to the adult panda starting point, we were
able to see beautiful scenery around. When we reached, there was a mother panda
eating with her children. The place was crowded with tourists and we could not
see them clearly. The funniest part was that there was a panda kept scratching
his butt on the wall for a period of time. The tour guide toke us to see the
red panda which was quite rare now. The red pandas were having their lunch so
we were so close to them when they were eating. In the panda research base,
there was peacock too, the peacock was so arrogant. When someone disturbed him,
it started to yelled and makes funny noises. While walking down the hill, we
went to watch a show at the Panda Story Cinema. I has learned lots of knowledge
about pandas and how to the breed and develop to an adult panda. In the show,
it also shown us the process of how the panda give birth and what do they eat
in the past. Panda in the past used to eat meat but now the pandas ate bamboos.
After walking through the souvenirs shop around 12pm, toke the bus out for
lunch at a restaurant nearby. Du Fu Thatched Cottage was the second destination
to go; it is located in the western suburb of Chengdu. He is a famous Tang poet
who lived in Chengdu for a brief period of time. During his stay, he wrote over
200 poems. The third destination was the Wu Hou Temple and JinLi Street. Wu Hou
Temple is to put the memory of Zhuge Liang and other military heroes in the
Three Kingdoms Period. JinLi Street was an ancient street which sold snack and
souvenirs. There was Starbucks in the street too; a lot of memories which we
had when we were young were all in the street. The food there was so nice. We
ate spicy tofu, sweet tofu, fried ice cream (corn flavor) with chili oil, squid
and Bing tang hu lu (strawberry). The best food was the strawberry coated with
sugar (5 RMB). After eating those snack, walked around the street and toke a
group photo. At 6.20pm, went to the same restaurant for dinner and almost half
the dishes were the same. While going back to school, we talked about our past
relationship memories. The weather was so cold that our classmate went ordering
rechargeable heat pack from the shop below our hostel.