Hello everybody! We've survived a very long 31 hour train journey with no food apart from "Hello Kitty" biscuits and very unattractive looking and tasting Chinese Pot Noodles that may have been grown in a petri dish and are now in Chengdu in the Sizchuan area of Western China. The train journey was that long that Gem was convinced she saw two elephants out of the window! If anyone could please confirm that elephants even exist in North West China, I would be extremely grateful! We've found a lovely (if a bit basic) hostel and Gem is currently squatting mosquitoes around me (there's a really nice squashed one on the screen now...) and cackling very loudly every time she gets one! We've done an awful lot of walking and treated ourselves to a curry tonight which was fantastic! Especially after the hot pot we had last night which we think may have been our first taste of dog... It was all going ok until Gem found a fish head floating in the soup thing we were cooking the food in! I think it was meant to be there but you can never be sure... I have also bought my second pair of shoes since being in China: you can never have too many pairs of shoes when you're backpacking... We're going to see pandas tomorrow and are both a bit giddy about it! Will update you then... Thanks for all the messages and emails, Loads of love Becs & Gem PS: Liz, we had more aubergines tonight!! And we did also have an apple each and some tomatoes on the train which I forgot to mention earlier...