Late Blog

Hey,
 
Sorry it's taken so long to write up the blog the internet has been down for the last few days and only just come back on again. Only got 15 minutes so have to write some now and some later, sorry about this, shows how remote we are.
 
17th June 2009 - 5:09pm
 
Wow! What an interesting day. Started off as normal with the breakfast and cage cleaning, pretty much all normal til lunch.
 
Tasha had played with the pandas so I was the person she elected to be her photographer whichw as great, so nice to see the pandas up close without the bars. Sure we clean their cages and enclosures each day and feed them but there are always bars in the way so good to see them uninhibited.
 
Tasha and I came back before the others and had a chance to play with the sweetest puppy that runs around the base - so cute! Also very light to hold - reminds me of what scamp was like as a pup.
 
The others came back and it turns out a bit of an arguement had arisen between two of the group which escalated later in the day, but won't write that on the blog, wasn't involved woo!
 
Lunch was great, 2 of my favorite dishes came out, peanut chicken and bak choi. After the vegetarian meal I seem to have a reputation for devoring bak choi - although it comes with these small peppercorn type spices that we all hate with a passion so it has become quite an art form for us to pick these out first and seeing peoples faces when they miss one.
 
After heading back it was feeding time for the pandas. One of our pandas - WougWoug has been moved to a new area as she was bred recently and might be pregnant so we have a new one.
 
NeeNee was as hungry as ever and Sui Ye was being as stubborn as normal and refusing to come whilst the new panda didn't eat her panda bread.
 
17th June 2009 - 11:18pm
 
Yet again Ya'an was a fantastic night. We went down at half five so arrived about 6 and went to get some dinner.
 
We went to the same restaurant as before as we knew the food was good. As per normal the food was amazing. We had ordered duck in which a whole duck, head attached came out, although no pancakes.
 
After dinner we went back to bridge from last week and spent about 2 hours there buying some souvenirs. I bought the chinese kettle I wanted, getting it home without breaking it might be interesting though!
 
We had a tea taster of some jasmine tea which was nice. Went into one tea shop which sold higher quality tea, and whilst in China it is normal to barter it is unusual for the staff to do it for you. The guy who serves me was arguing with his boss - ten seconds later he has knocked 1.20 off for me.
 
Next stop was the supermarket. Ann and I have been non-stop eating yet still losing weight, it's turned into a bit of a group joke, did mean we had to stock up on supplies. We also both had a desperate urge for hot chocolate which they didn't sell so we improvised. We bough some chocolate, milk powder and marshmallows.
 
As soon as we got back we broke up the chocolate into the cups and melted it with boiling water. We tested mine with milk powder but that was unbearably sweet so we just stuck to hot water - everyone else thought it would fail but we proved them wrong - tasted amazing!
 
Right really need to whizz back to work but will either try and get up to date tonight or tomorrow.

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