Lee and Clare, The road home

DVDs and NZ Cheese!!!

19^th November 2003

We're taking a break from our DVD watching. We've already watched two, so we've stopped to feed the fish in the Chinese garden in our hotel and do a touch of internet.

I have decided what I want for my birthday and have told Lee that if it's too much he can get it for me for Christmas and birthday. A baby panda. Oh my god they are so cute!! We went to see the pandas yesterday morning and it was so much better than we expected. We saw full size ones, 1 year old ones chasing people around and little GORGEOUS 3 month old ones in the nursery. They were about as big as a cat but so so so so cute. I want one!

Yesterday afternoon we went shopping. Chengdu is very modern and just like shopping in London or wherever. Lee got a new watch as the battery ran out on his G shock and for it to be waterproof would have to be sent away, so he just got a cheapie to keep him going till we get home.

We've lost a few things in the last few days, started to get a bit careless after 2 months of not forgetting anything. I lost my fleece (I was gutted, it was the best that Primark had to offer and I was quite attached to it, all $10 worth of it). Then on the same bus journey I lost my maglite torch (sorry dad! you bought that for me so lovingly too, i was a bit upset about that one!), and Lee left his hat - a good canterbury beanie too. We're hoping it won't be cold enough now to need to replace the hat and jumper, and we've got lee's torch so we'll be able to carry on with the trip. Then yesterday for the first time ever I left my money belt in our hotel room when we went to see the pandas. silly.

But the most exciting news is that we found a huge supermarket that sells so much YUMMY stuff. We bought MAINLAND CHEESE!!! And we had cheese, mayonaise and tomatoe sandwiches for dinner last night and lunch today! The cheese was expensive ($8 NZ for 250g) but it was SO worth it to eat something normal. The french stick we got was so fresh too. And they had yummy fresh banana cake and yes we are totally fixated on food now.

We've got 2 more DVDs to watch and then we're going to either get some more mcdonalds or find a western restaurant. We don't know what it is about Chinese food but we've both just totally been turned off it. We went to a Sichaunese restaurant yesterday since we are in Sichaun province and its food is famous but after a few mouthfulls we could almost physically not put any more down. It's quite spicy stuff. We've got about 10 days left in China now so we'll see how we go with the food.

We're sure that after a good rest after today and some good western food we'll be able to give the chinese food another go.

We watched Gangs of New York this morning and it didn't fit onto the 2 DVDs that we hired so they just cut the end off, so if anyone knows what happens at the end then please let us know. We also just watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days as one we wouldn't have to think about. Lined up in our movie marathon for this afternoon is The Matrix Reloaded and Lord of the Rings, Two Towers (we want to watch it again before watching the 3rd one when we get home, though that's a long one too so no doubt we'll miss the end).

Dad they have lots of coy carp in the garden here, don't worry we won't eat them. It's a beautiful Chinese garden, we ate our dinner in it last night. it's so much warmer here, makes life a bit pleasanter for us!!

Back the movies!
us

ps. We are going to stay here for 2 more nights before heading south on a night train on Friday, might even be warmer down there.