04aug01

Graydon and Joanne's
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August 04, 2001 - Chengdu & Xian, China

One of the new-born giant pandas at the panda breeding centre in Chengdu. He's only a couple of weeks old and is named Ao-ao after the first syllable of "Olympic" in Chinese pronunciation. He was born, one of a set of twins, shortly before Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympic Games. Isn't he cute?

Some pandas from Chengdu, and some antiquities from the old imperial capital of Xian. Xian was great in terms of ruins and museums, but what a depressing concrete hell of industrial pollution. We were there for 4 cloudless days and never saw the sun through the smog.

A lesser panda; raccoon-like, we found them cuter than the giant pandas.

Now we're in Xian. This is Graydon in front of a statue of his hero Xuanzang, China's greatest traveller, a sort of improved version of Marco Polo. A Buddhist monk of the 7th century, he spent 19 years travelling to India, collecting Buddhist manuscripts and bringing them back to China. The pagoda behind him, the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, was built to house the thousands of scrolls that Xuanzang brought home from India.

Some of the Chinese painting and calligraphy brushes that had Joanne drooling in Xian.

The back streets of the old Muslim quarter of Xian, full of souvenir stalls for the tourist hordes.

Some of the 6000 life-sized terracotta warriors buried 22 centuries ago as a guard of honour for China's first emperor, Qin Shihuang. Pretty impressive (although it should be, for 65 yuan!)

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