What's black and white and surrounded by curly blond hair?

That would be me hugging a panda.


Chengdu is the headquarters of breeding Giant Pandas, basically if you've ever seen a panda in your life chances are good it's originally from Chengdu. I've been anxiously awaiting my trip to the pandas since before I even got on a plane to China and so by the time the morning of the visit actually rolled around my excitement was unimaginable. I was awake early, jumping around, dancing and singing about the pandas.

When we arrived I was equally excited, dancing like a goon and clapping my hands every five seconds. Jon kept trying to explain to our driver that I was probably crazy but also very excited to see the pandas.

Anyway, here are some shots of the cute little fur balls.





Eventually I caved and decided I had to pay to play with the pandas and have my photo taken with them. I dug into my pockets, found the money that had been earmarked for Tibet and used a bit of it to spend some time hanging out with the old black and white. It was fantastic.



After my encounter with the pandas and some more time trotting around the grounds and me continuing to clap and dance it was finally time to go. We hung out around town during the afternoon and then it was time to make our way to the Sichuan opera performance that we had tickets to for the evening.

The show was all over the place and kind of talent show-esque, but it was fantastic.