pandas and opera

Last weekend China celebrated its National Day. This meant a few days off for everyone and I took this opportunity to travel a little. Unfortunately, so did the rest of China so it was very busy!!

I started my journey in the Yunnan province and went to Kunming. I took an overnight train from Nanning.  My first train in China, and I was impressed.  I had a 'soft' sleeper which is a 4 berth cabin, with mattresses, pillows and duvets on the berths.  Kunming didn't have that much to offer for me, the state is more known for its hiking areas, so I only stayed the one night before continuing on to Chengdu. I was very excited about going to Chengdu as this is where the Giant Pandas are.  I did enjoy walking around the city, which has a nice climate, not too hot and not too cold and is more 'western' than Nanning.  I stumbled across a park where people were playing mahjiang, cards and dancing as well as attending choir practice.

choir practice

In Chengdu I stayed at a backpackers place.  There were loads of Dutch people there (they always seem to travel everywhere) so I ended up practicing my Dutch again.  A group of us went to the panda breeding reserve where we fed the pandas, cleaned their cages and learnt a little about Giant Pandas.

big teddy bears?

and small ones... these are 1 month old.

I also spent a day visiting the Giant Buddha in Leshan. This was carved into the cliffs by a monk many years ago as he believed the spirit of the Buddha would calm the rough river below. This did actually work, though it's more likely due to all the rocks and dirt that went into the river in the process of creating the Buddha.

World's largest Buddha

big hands

The other highlights included eating the Sichuan food (very spicy)

hot pot

and seeing the opera. This is not like a typical opera, as it's more of a mix of different talents and skits being performed. The most impressive of which is the face changing act. The people come on stage with masks on and through various moved manage to change them entirely in a split second. It's very impressive.

Sichuan Opera performers