This postcard is very late getting posted because, to be frank, email facilities, internet and computers generally in China are CRAP!!!! We can't figure out if they are incredibly behind the times with technology, despite having some of the worlds biggest tech companies, or if the restrictions placed on services by the government are causing all the problems. Either way Carol has nearly had to physically stop Chris from throwing computers through windows in the last week, to avoid him being carted off by the red police! Anyway, the flight from Guilin to Chengdu was pretty uneventful, apart from a near cardiac arrest when ordering a cup of coffee at the airport. Normally you would pay no more than 67p for a pot of tea (and that is in a more expensive tourist restaurant) and these jokers at the airport wanted US$6 for a cup of coffee (there are a lot of windows getting broken over here). Chengdu is a big town in the Sichuan province, in the west of China. It is famed for a number of things, the two principle ones being the nearby Giant Panda Conservation area and the food. As a symbol of China for hundreds of years we decided some time ago that we wanted to visit the Pandas here as they are a species seriously in danger of extinction. The conservation park is world reknowned and is carrying out some pioneering work in the area of breeding, as the cuddly pandas themselves seem to have trouble keeping their numbers up all on their own. With the destruction of their habitat and poor diet, as well as the fact that they seem to have generally lost their mojo for reproduction, numbers have dwindled down to around 1000 worldwide. Most of the breeding is now done by artificial insemination, which has successfully produced 250 baby pandas, although only around half of these have survived in to adulthood. The conservation area itself was reasonably large and the pandas had good sized areas to roam in. On the day we visited, it was pouring down, once again, but that didn't seem to deter the pandas from coming out of the dry to feed on their diet of bamboo shoots and leaves. Our visit was timed to co-ordinate with feeding times, as they spend 80% of their time eating and sleeping and we wanted to ensure that we had a good opportunity to see them in their full glory. They are the most cumbersome and dopey animals we have ever seen. If we had put a man in a panda suit and asked him to perform for the camera we would not have had more funny video footage than we got that day. We were in stitches watching them fall over, get stuck in trees and generally rolling about the compounds - definatley some Jeremy Beadle stuff in there. That night we went to see a cultural show at a local theatre that gave a taster of some of the traditional performance arts of Sichuan and China in general. There was a good mix between performances of different instruments, hand shadow performances, string puppets, Sichuan opera and comedy opera. The one thing that really impressed us was the Sichuan opera, which is really a play through dramatic dance and movement. The costumes were amazing; very colourful and flambouyant. One of teh amazing aspects of the sichuan opera is the quick change of face masks that depict emotions of the character. Someone would flick a fan in front of their head, or even just momentarily turn around and without their hands being anywhere near their faces, the mask would suddenly change to a different one. One of the performers even came into the audience and even close up within a few feet we were unable to see how they were doing it. The following day the sun broke for the first time in a week so we took the opportunity to walk around the city of Chengdu. The amount of construction work going on is unbelievable. In almost all the instances we have seen, they seem to be completly rebuilding cities and then knocking down all the old buildings, perhaps in readiness for the olympics in 3 years time and the increased tourism that will bring. Whilst the place will look pretty spiffy there are a few things that tourists will find difficult to get used to. Loudly 'hoiking' the contents of your lungs up and spitting it out onto the pavement seems to be a favourite past-time for men and women. The guy in the internet cafe even did it yesterday, just spitting on the floor. Gross! The other thing is that there is no such thing as personal space. This has been synonymous with Asia but much more prevalent here. Chris can be buying tickets somewhere and there will be 4 people trying to thrust there money into the ticket booth whilst he is doing so. Thankfully, we are both a lot bigger than them and a good shove normally does the trick. We are starting to educate the natives inthe ways of civilisation! We are obviously an oddity over here, even in areas that tourists are more likely to travel. We are constantly stared at. We don't mean a sly look out of the corner of their eye, but a a full on, mouth open stare of disbelief, by just about everyone who we walk past. We are just waiting for the "carry on" scene to happen, where someone walks into a lampost whilst they stare at us - we will laugh ourselves silly if they do. The good thing is we have now discovered that they hate it if we stare back and get very embarrassed and look away very quickly - so at least we can get our own back in a small way. Whilst we were walking in one of the beautiful parks of Chengdu we came across a guy who was mentioned in our guidebook as a cultural interpreter, Mr Lee. He was really helpful in getting us a cup of tea first of all and in explaining some of the things about China. Taking tea in a tea garden seems to be a national past-time over here, with the principle aim to play Mah Jong for money. The chinese are really big gamblers and will take every opportunity to win money on anything. We were about the only people in the tea garden actually drinking tea rather than playing Mah Jong, but it was good fun to watch. Mr Lee also helped us out buying some boat tickets for a trip down the Yangtze river and with a recommendation for trying Sichuan Hotpot, the speciality dish of the province. We decided to have a go at it for dinner that night and headed for the buffet restaurant that he had recommended. We arrived to bemused stares from around 200 diners in a large open-plan restaurant about 200x 100 feet - we were they only westerners there. The noise was deafening as locals, mostly in big social groups, got to grips with the free beer and the hotpot selections. With various handsignals we eventually understood what we were supposed to do about dinner. In a way, it is a little like fondue in that they bring a large dish to your table and place it on a burner in the centre. On one side of the renowned Sichuan oil that is spiced with chillis and wild peppers and on the other side a broth with a more moderate kick to it. From the buffet selection we were instructed to pick our choice of meats and vegetables and then just throw them into the oil, wait for them to cook and then pick them out with the chopsticks. The buffet table had around 90 different dishes available for us to choose from - we recognised around 20 of them!!. The first was a plate plate of brains (about dog size), which we passed on, and various meats and seafood which didn't look too dangerous including a whole sting ray and live eels. The Sichuan oils, however, destroyed the taste of any of the food as it was so hot it burnt away any sensitivity from your tastebuds! We did enjoy it however, and were glad that we had tried this local speciality. We are now going to venture east again to Chongqing where we hope to board a boat for a 3 day trip down the Yangtze river.