China 2011 Travel Blog

My foot is almost good as new! Which is good because we have been doing some more walking. Yesterday morning we visited doctoral students and a professor of Religious Studies at Sichuan University here in Chengdu. It's very interesting that only one student is a Christian - the rest are studying for cultural reasons. We also ate lunch at a nice place on campus. Beau was really excited that Rick, one of the students, was a fellow "trekkie." 

In the afternoon, which was sunny and slightly warm, we went to the Chengdu Panda Research Center. And we got to see pandas! Pandass sleeping, pandas eating, pandas climbing, pandas cuddling, pandas walking, pandas hidding... so many pandas! It was such a wonderful experience! And we saw red pandas too. So cute! Last night I dreamed that I held a panda cub.

This morning we visited the Sichuan Christian Council office and a huge church they are building that is realy big and really nice! Then off to a Buddhist monestary and ate a vegan meal, which was great. After that we visited the "green goat" Daoist Temple and learned about this Chinese religion. To us it seemed rather complicated and confusing, but things were put into perspective when the Daoist monk asked Peter to explain the Trinity.

Shopping this afternoon and a yummy dinner, followed by more shopping. I''m kind of shopped out at the moment! It is surprisingly difficult to find a non-Western type store in the shopping area by our hotel.