We've spent almost a week now here in Chengdu, dad has been teaching and I've been getting to know the city. Chengdu has a rich history and the girls (some Chinese students) have been kind enough to show me around. I've seen many interesting things but favorite place in Chengdu is the panda park. I last listed my top 5 animals when I was in South America, and big news, the order has changed now. My top 1 favorite animal is the panda bear and following behind are lama, koala bear, monkey and dolphin. We went to the panda park today and the pandas were lovely. We went to see the nursery and there were a dozen pandas aged 1-2 months and they were absolutely gorgeous.

Besides the panda bears Sichuan province (Chengdu is the capital) is famous, for it's spicy food and I've already had many lovely meals. One night we went to have the famous hot pot, it's this very spicy "hot pot" where you dip different vegetables or meat. It was really tasty, but my lips were still burning by the time we got home.

I've been seeing nightmares here in Chengdu, no idea why, because I'm feeling completely normal, but it's been stressful going to bed. My dreams have been typical nightmares, like I've been stuck somewhere, or trying to escape from some killers, or Sarah Palin was elected as the president of the United States.. I think it might be this one mosquito that's been bothering me since I got here. I can never see it during the evening, but when I turn off my computer and go to bed, instantly it starts buzzing and although several attempts, I haven't managed to kill it yet. One morning I woke up with seven mosquito bites on my face and my left eye was so swollen, that I was worried that I had some kind of infection, but it turned out it was caused by the mosquito.

In our hotel here in Chengdu no-one speaks English and it's frustrating when you can't get an answer to even the simplest question or make yourself understood. It's frustrating not being able to speak any Chinese, apart from the thank you and hello- which I master by now ;). We tried to get a snack at the hotels cafe, but failed, so we went to buy some food from the shop at the university. We also wanted to buy fruit, but fruit is normally only sold by fruit sellers, not in ordinary shops. In the shop dad saw some fruits behind the counter, halfway inside someones bag and with sign language he tried to show that he wanted to buy them, and I tried to tell him that they are probably not for sale, since they were almost in the girls bag. The poor girl didn't know what to do and in the end she just gave us her two oranges and an apple. (Great, now we're begging for food..) Then we bought some noodles and water and left the shop, pleased with ourselves that we got everything we went in for. :)