PANDAS!

When we went to the American Culture class yesterday a student told us he went to pick up some "foreign friends" from the airport and he asked us if we knew what the first thing they asked was. We, of course, didn't and he said the first thing they asked was "Where are all the Pandas?" Then he said "I thought they must think in Chengdu there are Pandas running around in the streets or something. Do all foreigners think this?" We told him that no, not all foreigners think this. There may have been some language break down somewhere in there and they could have been asking something else, but I still thought it was a pretty funny story. Chengdu is, obviously, famous for Pandas. There is a larger Panda Reserve, called Wu Long that is very famous and a smaller one closer to the city that is more like a Panda zoo. Yesterday we got to go to the smaller one to see Chengdu's famous Pandas. We went with alot of the other foreign students on a sort of field trip. The Panda Reserve is about 20 minutes from school and we all piled on 3 buses to get there. When we arrived and started walking around, I was amazed. It is one of the first places I have been in Chengdu that I can actually describe as beautiful. There were bamboo forests everywhere. They said they grow this bamboo to feed the Pandas in case there is ever a shortage. The paths are all stone and everything is kept up really well. We got to see a bunch of Pandas eating and walking around. We even got to see babies! They were so cute. But they were only about 1 month old and they still kept them in incubators. They kept these ones in incubators because they were the "runts." Even though Pandas usually only have a few cubs, in most cases one or two, there is still sometimes a cast off one. If the baby doesn't cry loud enough when it is born the mother won't know she had two and will only take care of the first one. So the babies in the incubators were the runts that otherwise would have died. The Pandas were really beautiful. I could stand and watch them all day. The way they eat bamboo is really amazing too. They have this really efficient way of peeling off the skin and taking a bite at the same time. They eat alot too because they have carnivore stomachs, which means they can't digest the majority of the bamboo, so they have to eat ALOT.
That was pretty much the excitement of the week, but in other news I am now officially winter swimming (dong yong). The guy told me today that the water temperature is below 20 degrees Celsius and now it is winter swimming. I didn't think it felt that much colder though. They are also really worried that I'm going to swim too long in the cold water. I might have to find another gym with a pool or something because now they won't let me swim for more than an hour and even then they are not very happy. Also, after swimming today Laura and I went out to dinner with a Chinese girl we met and her boyfriend. They are both Chemical Engineers. She is a grad student here and will graduate this year and her boyfriend, whose name I never really caught, works for a company doing something with natural gas, i think. They took us out to huoguo (hot pot) which is a Chengdu specialty. Laura and I had both had it before, but it was better this time because we got to pick what to put in it. It is kind of a fondue idea, but much better. You have a pot of hot oil with hua jiao and spicy chili peppers in it (so its very spicy) and you pick out a bunch of meat and vegetables and drop them in. Then when they are done you just pick them out and eat them. It is delicious, but very spicy and very greasy. I was SO full afterwards. But it was really fun and next time we are going to try to speak only Chinese, or at least mostly.
I also won the lottery today! Not really, but it feels like it. I checked my email and I got a $4000 scholarship from the International Programs and Exchange Office that I didn't even apply for! I still can't believe it.
So that's the news from this side of the world. Wan an!