Right another hour spent in a smokey internet cafe to give you informatin on my travels - I am trying my best to keep in touch - though EVERYONE tells me that after the first 2-3 weeks you get behind and no one really keeps up with these things... ahh hell I'll try!

So Chengdu - well first6ly WOW its so beautiful - more what I thought China would be like... lots of old fasion buildings with the funny "oriental" roofs and temples everywhere...gardens..markets...and great food (of course)... People are actually nice here too (first place where people say hello when you enter shops and actually try to speak English to you) - having said that some of us were rejected a cab fair for being Western :S ... they do understand it when you say f*** you though (common ground from the English language)!

On Day 1 - All we did was EAT - ok there are markets EVERYWHERE are with all the lovely food (fruits in honey sugar.... though weird as they put tomatoes with all the fruits and when youve got a stick of orange, apple and mango you dont wanna see a bloody tomatoe on it too - ewww weirdos!) we tried egg cake with sugar... smoked quail (cooked with its head still on) fried ice cream - not a favourite and many other bits and bobs...

Again been in the tea houses (does starbucks count too?! Decenty tea fix is needed every once in a while but the green tea and jasmine tea are nice so they are actually becoming a choice rather than necessity .. and they are cheap ;) hee hee) Also McDonalds and KFC are everywhere...still even in these village towns - still surprising me!

In the eve we watched cultural performance - wow the instruments flameflowing adn mask changing... were all AMAZING... the opera - well its like they say...westerners really can stand only 10 minutes...say no more... we also tried YAK meat... our hotel is in the Tibetan area of chengdu (like new malden has mini korea) so we have chillie yak meat with yak dumplings yak pie and yak un-chilled with yoghurt and sugar.... thank god i actually am loving the yak (like strong chewy flavoursome beef - very good but VERY filling adn heavy)!

Day 2 - OMG I saw the Pandas... of the 1000 left 100 are at the Chendgu research centre...including 1month olds, 3months old and lots of daddy pandas... it was fantastic to spend the morning there- a highlight!!

Another market - always great... another temple...monestary gardens and religious grounds (and they were selling tortoises to eat - I almost bought one to set it free :( how cute)! WE ate inthis vegatarian restaurant but until now we didnt know all the meat dishes we ate were tofu... as it was all delicious and was put in the menu as meat (we thought like everything in China they had got it backward and was a case of false advertising) amazing!!

Random fact about Chendgu: its the oldest town in china as it hasnt changed its name to a modern one like most other cities when the dynasties got together... and China is called that due to the Chin dynasty (wickapedia the rest)...

Anyway gottqa be up at 4.50am to catch a plane (2 actually) so speak soon feel free to write on the message board- its nice to think people actually read this :) xx