Day 8 - Panda Base or Bust

 Since Maelee did so well yesterday at the park and shops, we decided to brave a longer trip out in public.  Today we chose to go the must-see Panda Base which is about a 20 minute taxi drive away.  Our journey there started with us splitting up between two taxis.  Mom, Micah, Nathan, and Hannah went in one and the rest of us in the other.  The drivers were told to stick together on the way there, but I’m pretty sure our driver was trying to lose the other cab.  He was definitely driving 130 km/h in the 60 km/h zone and swerving in and out of traffic.  It felt a little bit like Amazing Race. At the end of our trip, both taxis pulled up to the stop at the exact same time and let us out right near the entrance.  Good job Chengdu taxi drivers!

I'm sorry to report that the Panda Base overall was underwhelming.  The three hours we spent there can be broken down as shown below.  One other interesting thing to note is that we continually feel like we are being chased by the papparazzi.  Some people sneak photos, some outright ask for photos, others just give us hard long stares.  More to come on that in a following post.

2.5 hours - Walking up and down very steep hills trying to figure out where to go.  One of the big exhibits was closed and it totally cut off the one road we were on from the rest of the park.  It felt a little like Jurassic Park after the dinosaurs escape.  I was just waiting for a raptor to run out of the woods and devour us every time we came to another derelict building that was under construction.

15 minutes – Battening down the hatches as hoards of school children passed by and said “hello” in their best English.  Apparently military fatigues are the dress of choice for school teachers leading a bunch of rambunctious kids through the Panda Base.  And the "please be quiet around the pandas.  They hate noise" apparently does not apply to school children.

·        10 minutes – Jumping out of the way of the shuttle busses … so that’s why people were waiting in the long line at the entrance.  You let the shuttle bus do the work of driving and up and down the crazy steep hills.

·        5 minutes – Actually watching pandas.  We saw some big ones and some small ones.  It … was … was … OK.

It was sunny out ... can you tell?

No less than 10 Chengdu residents have this photo on their phone.  Yet, we could not resist the opportunity since there were 5 panda statues all in a row.

I am including this photo just for Nathan.  He demanded a picture be taken of this foilage that comes from the bamboo plant.  It was probably the coolest thing he saw all day.

Here's someone who didn't really ask, but at least was open about it.

The other girl got a selfie, too, and then eagerly showed her boyfriend when he arrived.  I made them pose for this picture so I could get one of them.

Fanciest toilet I have ever seen.  It reminds me of the opening scene in Cars 2.  For what it is worth, Panda Base did have some high quality, clean bathrooms.

  

One wave of school children passing by.

Small panda

Big panda in a tree

  

Big panda on the ground

Family shot with the panda ... you get the drift ... lots of pandas.

We finally found our way back to the entrance and a guy outside said he could take all of us back to our hotel for 80 Yuan.  Since this cost the same as 2 taxis, we agreed.  We got to ride in back in style in a minivan with leather seats.  We weren’t quite sure if we were going to get back alive, but at least we were all together.  One quick prayer for safety and we hunkered down for the ride back.  OK … that yellow bridge looks familiar … that building looks familiar …. OK we see our hotel … whew!

As soon as we got back Deanna took Nathan on a mini-adventure to some stores we passed on our way back to the hotel.  She came back an hour later with a porcelain frog and a porcelain vase.  Meanwhile, Matt and kids tried to get Maelee to laugh.  The old “put a block on your head and pretend to sneeze so it falls off” trick worked like a charm.  In no time flat Maelee was giggling and smiling.  We really got to see more of her personality come out today as she started to warm up to us.  She was even eating and drinking more today which was a big blessing.

Is that a smile?  I think so!

For dinner we tried Mike’s Pizza … top pick on Trip Advisor.  We ordered a cornucopia of American food which included a stuffed sausage pizza, breadsticks, mozzarella sticks, a pulled pork sandwich, a meatball sandwich, and a plate of spaghetti.  That’s right folks; the Marquette’s have ate pizza every single day since being in China.  This by far was the best meal we have had yet and were a little sad we didn't know about it earlier.

Our feast

We closed our night with one more swim in the hotel pool.  Good night Chengdu!  Tomorrow we are off to Guangzhou to complete our visa paperwork.  Please pray for kids that travel well tomorrow!

Good night Chengdu

Blessings for Today:

- Maelee continuing to open up to us ... we got to see her smile, laugh, throw blocks, and even crawl today!  All the children had fun interacting with her.

- Safety going to/from the Panda Base

- A wonderful meal to end out our time in Chengdu
- Working out our Marriott points for our upcoming hotel reservations.  6 Skype calls, 2 online web chats, and 4 hours later and we got it figured out.  At the end of the day, we were able to save another $500 on our lodging!

# Matt's post