Today was our one and only full day of touring in Chengdu
China and we are absolutely exhausted!!
This trip makes my 13th time traveling to China,
but never have I had the opportunity to travel to Chengdu. I have to say that I will certainly be back!!
One of the things I have on my list of things to do before I
depart of the earth can now be crossed off.
I wanted to visit the Panda Reserves in China, and today that is exactly
what we did!!
We went to a reserve in which the pandas are kept in a
nature preserve and of course this includes breeding as China continues to work
hard in order to increase the panda population.
This particular reserve houses about 100 pandas and we had the
opportunity to see them up close and personal.
We went in the morning so we they were awake and
eating. The panda spends 10 hours per
day eating, 12 hours per day sleeping and 2 hours per day playing. We were so close to them that we could
literally hear them rip off the bamboo leaves from the branches and hear them
munching on them.
The panda has to be the most laid back-docile animal I have
ever seen. There were some of them who
would literally lay on their backs as they ate.
When they napped, they would find a tree branch, flop down on it, and
however they landed is where they stayed.
They would fall asleep in a matter of minutes.
When it was time for them to go inside, the caregivers would
have to yell at them to wake them up, and then they would have to coax them
down from their perch by putting an apple on the end of a stick and waive it in
their faces. Even then, it didn’t work
for some of them. They would just close
their eyes and go back to sleep. It was
great to watch!!
I hope you enjoy the pictures. My absolute highlight of this trip so
far!! Austin, on the other hand said
that while he loved the pandas, he’s still unsure whether he liked them as much
as the rickshaw ride—but it was a close second.
After we came back down from the reserve we went back into
the city to have lunch. The Chengdu area
is known of its spicy food and so the food was very different then what we have
had up to this point. The nasal passages
are now clear-ha!
After lunch we returned to our hotel to get some rest and to
get caught up on our blog posts. The we
went out on the town for dinner and to watch a traditional Chinese opera, which
including their “Changing of the Masks” show.
After the first segment Austin turned and said, “This is my
favorite!” Really…..very interesting.
While we were out this evening, Abraham, on the other hand,
was climbing into his bed at the orphanage for the very last time in his entire
life. I am SO ready to see him
tomorrow! We will be getting him around
2pm, which will be 2am eastern time on Thanksgiving Day!
So the next time we will post, we will have our little
guy!! It is so hard to believe only 9
short months ago, we made the decision to adopt Abraham and make him a part of
our family. There is nothing greater
than to know that you are smack dab in the middle of God’s will for your
life. I know I have probably said this a
hundred times already, but it is just so humbling to be chosen by God to be a
parent to these children and to be written into their story. We are SO blessed!!
Blessings!!!
Jim, Vickie and Austin
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