Travel Journal

Still in Chengdu and still no improvement in the ticket business so I have done some serious sightseeing to kill the time. I've been to the Giant Panda breeding research base in town to see the panda's and also the little cubs. And they are sooooo sweet and so cute. It's really funny so see the little cubs trying to walk around and climb and of course falling all the time because they are still soooo clumsy. But also the big ones are really nice to observe, they don't exercise a lot to save energy.....bamboo is not the most nutricious food you can imagine... so most of the time they are eating or sleeping. Yes, really great to see this enormous animal that close.

And to keep it in style.....i visited the giant buddha of Leshan, now the largest Buddha in the world. With a fingernail taller than an average human. To see the Buddha you first climb to the top of the hill and from there you descend next to the Buddha and only at the moment you reach the bottom and stand at it's feet you truly realize the magnitude of it and get the Lilliputian perspective.

A Buddhist monk started the whole thing in AD 713, hoping that the Buddha would calm the swift currents and protect boatmen from lethal currents in river hollow's. Well, the big guy "matured" slowly and was finally completed 90 years after the monks dead. Surplus rocks from the sculpting filled the river hollow and did the trick, but locals insist it's really the calming effect of the Buddha.

And yes, the train ticket....still not materializing.....I've been at the train station in the morning, afternoon, at midnight, at 5 in the morning but only "Mei you" which means: no have!!!!!!!! So I'm getting a bit depressed at the moment. But I won't give in.....no plane for me....I will beat (probably outwait) the silly Chinese system and get my train ticket anyway. So if my next entry takes some time.......that means I'm still waiting at the train station!!!!!!