The last stop of my China trip was the city of Chengdu, famous for its Panda Research Base. Before I went to see the Pandas, however, I visited a couple of other sites around the city, including the Jinsha Archaeological Site and a Daoist temple.
The Jinsha Archeological Site, an ancient settlement occupied from 1250 to 650 BC, was discovered relatively recently in 2001.
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| The excavation site. |
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| Pile of potsherds. |
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| Intact and reconstructed pottery. |
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| Golden mask. It rather reminded me of the so-called Mask of Agamemnon. |
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| The most famous Jinsha find: "Golden Sun Bird", a gold foil disk with four birds circling the sun. |
We also visited a Daoist temple with beautiful grounds.
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| Quite the fierce turtle, don't you think? |
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| Yin yang, surrounded by the Chinese zodiac. |
And lastly, of course, we visited the Panda Research Base. Unfortunately it was an unusually hot day so the pandas were all inside and therefore hard to see, but I did get to glimpse a couple of absolutely adorable cubs.
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Anything strike you as strange? Count the pads. Pandas have five fingers and an extra "thumb" that is not actually a finger,
but a wrist bone that has evolved in the panda because it enables them to better hold bamboo to eat. |
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| The youngest panda (can't you tell?). |
I hope to return sometime and view the pandas in the outdoor habitats which were very nice. Here are a few other animals in the park surrounding the panda enclosures.
And finally, a view across the river near where we were staying.
And that, only four months late, concludes my time in China. It was quite a year and I am so glad that I went; I learned such a great deal about China, Chinese, teaching, and so much more. It's also been wonderful to be home again, especially with the holidays approaching!
