Panda Eclipse
After Huang Shan, I visited Chengdu in Sichuan Province. On July 22 there was an eclipse in some parts of the world.
I saw a partial eclipse in Turkey and basically there was nothing to see, so I wasn’t holding out too much hope, especially since the skies are so grey in many parts of China.
Chengdu had a total eclipse though. The total eclipse was scheduled for 9:10. At 8:30 there was no difference. Then at about 9:10, the sun appeared from behind the clouds and you could see part of it disappearing. Then it went really dark suddenly, like it was the middle of the night. And in a few minutes it was light again.
Chengdu also has a panda sanctuary. The panda sanctuary was ok, but a bit disappointing compared to some of the photos I’ve seen. The pandas have nice outdoor play areas, but when I was there, all of the pandas were in their small, dark indoor enclosures. It was fun to watch them playing around, but it was too dark to take any good photos. I got to see a 3-day old baby panda, which was cool. It looked like a little mouse (but we weren’t allowed to take photos).
Then I went to Xi’an, one of the old capitals of China. The first Chinese emperor was buried here along with thousands of statues – the terracotta warriors. The terracotta warriors are displayed in three big pits. The main pit has thousands of stone warriors. Each of them have different faces.
The warriors were discovered in March 1974, an auspicious time for revealing world treasures.
Have fun,
Aidan
Chinese Language Factoid of the Day
Panda is not a Chinese word. In Mandarin they’re called da xiong mao (big bear cat).
Please support my blog by clicking this blog site ranking list.
Hi Aidan san
The terracotta warriors are amazing. I’ve heard that a local man happend to find the site. His discovery must have brought him fortune.
Would it be possible for me to find a historical site that is sleeping under ground secretly? (smile)
Pandas are associated with cats. Interesting!
Sincerely
yuko
Hi Yuko.
Yeah, it’s surprising what you can find underground.
Australia doesn’t have many old sites though. The Aboriginals did some paintings which are more than 40,000 years old, but they didn’t make any buildings.
But maybe you can find some old places in Japan.
Have fun,
Aidan.