I am in the privileged position of having friends all over the world, one of whom is Shawna who I met during my time at Cornell. She has now moved to Chengdu, a city in the Sichuan region of China where she is currently working as a lecturer at the medical school of the main University.
As I was in the area it was a great opportunity to visit my friend, to see some of China, and to sample the food.
That’s all very well you may say, but what about the Pandas? Yes I admit it I have a soft spot for great big fluffy, slow moving bamboo eaters and the Sichuan area is famous for both its Pandas and its pretty girls. There were just so many reasons to visit, so I jumped on an Airasia flight from KL, cheap as chips to get there, I love Airasia 
An additional benefit was that I would be there to celebrate New Year too.
Anyway onto the Pandas. Chengdu has a Giant Panda rehabilitation centre. Here they manage to successfully breed the Giant Pandas by showing them Panda porn (the things you learn on a backpacking trip). In reality the place is more like a zoo, but it has lots of Giant and Red Pandas. The highlight without doubt are the baby Giant Pandas who love to show off their Kung fu skills; they are just so cute when play fighting that it is untrue.
Chengdu Giant Panda
Chengdu Baby Giant Pandas
The Red Pandas were also pretty cool.
Chengdu red panda
Although Chengdu is a nice place and has great food, we did not want to stay in the city the whole time, so we went on a trip to the Feng Shui city of Langzhong. This is a really old school Chinese city, full of cool streets and temples.
Langzhong streets
