Traveling the World

You’ve just come off a very long plane ride to the tune of 12 hours. The time and money spent and lost to get here are completely worth it, and you know it as soon as you step off the plane. The incredibly deep blue sky and lingering clouds open your eyes and remind you of what life was like before China. You’re further reminded of this when you take your luggage from the carousel and are made to wait in line for an hour just to be searched and enter customs.

All the stress of travel leaves you as you are picked up by your mate’s father and enjoy a nice car ride (on the opposite side of the road) and take in the amazing scenery. First stop: a home-cooked meal. After having been away so long, this kind of special meal fully recharges your batteries and you feel great. Time to move on and enjoy the rest of your trip!

Malaysian sunset

You’re en route from the center of a beautiful modern city to the outskirts almost 150km outside of town. You’ve spent the entire day running around trying to experience as much as you can, because tomorrow you’ll be on a plane to Australia. As the sun descends in the sky and is replaced by its sister Moon, you feel strangely happy being in this foreign land. You can’t remember the last time you enjoyed the heat coming off the surface of the sun and gently baking your skin at a nice temperature of 88F, just enough to make you a light brown but not enough to bake you all the way. It’s a great introduction to the following month you’ve been waiting to happen for almost a year.

The bus gently rolls along the highway as you pass suburban homes that remind you of your own home so far away. You long to return to the arms of your family and friends, but know it’s just a distant dream. You realize this is the best you have and enjoy it all you can before you return to the monotony of the daily grind. It is with this enjoyment of travel that keeps you going, and with it your eyes close to the gentle hum of the wheels along the road.

After seeing the pandas in their natural habitat for several minutes, I got in line and waited for what seemed like forever. As the clock struck 9:30am, they opened the doors and we rushed in. They put robes on us and asked us to wait. Several minutes later, I’m sitting down on the bench with my heart racing, when I see the door open and a big ol’ Panda bear squirming about in the arms of a caretaker. They gently lay it on my lap, and wow it’s heavy! My guess is it weighed about 45 pounds (22kg)!

One of the other people waiting to play with the panda asked how heavy it was, to which I replied “about 45 pounds, but that’s nothing because my girlfriend weighs twice that and I’ve had no problems with her!” The Panda was insanely cute, and I hugged it. It sniffed my face, as if trying to kiss me hello. It felt so good to tick off one of my things to do in life, but at the same time I was a bit scared because they have been known to get aggressive for no reason. Just last year, an idiot climbed into a Panda habitat to “pet” it, and got mauled to death.

Sorry to end this post on a bad note, but it’s the truth! In reality, these Pandas are very docile and loving, but one thing we should all learn is never to enter THEIR habitat, always let them enter YOURS. I hope you have the opportunity to come to China and hold these majestic creatures, even if it DOES cost 1000rmb for 2 minutes ($145).

Many people who come to China do so for a few reasons: to see the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, to hold a Panda, to adopt a baby, or to start/expand a business. I came here for none of those reasons, but in this instance when my friends were here, holding a Panda became essential to my life’s mission.

I was nervous. Would the Panda like me? Would it try to bite my head off? We have always been taught that they are big, clumsy, playful, and docile creatures, but is that the truth? We so often make assumptions about animals, but we fail to remember that they aren’t human, and thus it’s impossible to predict their behavior. Just last year, a man entered a Panda habitat in an attempt to “pet” it, but the Panda slashed him to death.

As we arrived at the Panda reserve, I began to shake with excitement. We spend our entire lives watching about Pandas on Discovery Channel, yet only a small percentage of us have the great fortune to come face-to-face with them. Our first stop was at the breeding center, where the tiniest of babies were sleeping or being fed milk from a bottle. They were cuter than I had expected. We spent a few moments “ooohhing” and “aaahhhing,” before we moved on.

Then came the red “pandas,” which are basically off-colored raccoons. Those were annoying and fidgety, so we moved on to the real Pandas. These Pandas were sitting around, sleeping, eating breakfast, or playing with each other.

More to come next time…

Imagine entering the People’s Park in Chengdu after having watched shows about it for years. You know exactly why you’re going, and insist on the journey. You enter from the front gate, a bit nervous but excited at the idea of finally being able to tick off the experience in your mind as something you’ve wanted to do for a while. You reach the back of the park and find your man. You sit down in the chair and let him go to work…cleaning your ears.

“Heheheh,” you laugh, as the instruments he use tickle you. He wiggles it around inside your head, finally pulling it out and showing you just how bad you are. The cotton ball is FULL of guk and nasty wax, and he tells you to take better care of yourself. He throws the ball away, and pulls out his second tool, and thrusts your head to the side for a better view. It’s almost like a giant pair of tweezers, and you feel like his next objective, after having removed the wax blocking the path, is to remove bits of your brain and show it to you…like a frontal lobotomy, but through the ear.

You relax as you realize you’re still sitting in the peaceful People’s Park, and not some mad scientist’s lab. Within a few minutes it’s all over, and you smile at having endured the relentless prodding of your inner ear, for a price most foreigners would be shocked over: $2.50.