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Hello from Chengdu!
The night before we caught our overnight train to Chengdu we managed to get the Barcelona v Man U game on on a big screen in the bar of the hostel, it did not start until 3am so we were up till about five ish, in the morning we pretty much had to pack check out and then get to the train station to get our train. Xian train station was very diffent to Beijing everyone was staring at us but luckily we did not have much time to spare. We got on the train at 1pm and were delighted when the train pulled off to find we had the whole cabin to ourselves, so we settled down to a sixteen hour train journey, tired from the night before I fell asleep and when i woke there was loads of local people who had got on the next stop gathered round our cabin looking in at us v strange even all the staff came in to look at us a giggled when we waved hello. The journey was so good we drove through the mountains the scenery was amazing you did not see anyone for miles about four hours. We had some food rice and stuff they bought round for us then slept from 10pm till about half four the next morning. We realised that we had not checked if we were being picked up by the hostel and only knew the name of it but the chinese guy in the next cabin took us under his wing as he spoke English when the train stopped about an hour later he took us through the station to the exit it's mad loads of people just waving signs at you luckily we spotted the sign for our hostel so all was fine.
We arrived at the hostel again please it was not horrible first time we have had to share a bathroom and shower with a whole floor though but it's all v clean so thats fine. We booked to see the Pandas at the Panda Research and Breeding base the next day and then had a look around the town. Chengdu is a the fifth biggest city in China but walking round it's very different from Xian and Beijing.
We left next morning for the panda research centre about twenty of us , it was amazing the photos should give you a good ideas how cute they were, the centre breed them to try and stop them becoming extinct as there are only 1000 left in the world. It was apsolutley great (will try and upload video of them) they chew on bamboo all day when makes them really chilled out they just lie around sleeping they have to be woken up to eat!
We have just booked onto a three day river cruise starting on Monday we sail down the Yangtze river for three days and stay overnight on the boat we will then make our way by bus and train to Hong Kong we will update further once we arrive in Hong Kong.
China has been amazing so far the people are so friendly and will go out of the way to help you but my god they spit everywhere you have never seen anything like it the sniff up hard as they can can cough it up and then spit (even the women) no matter where they are gross!!
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