Panda babies and Sichuan cooking!

Our last day in Chengdu yesterday we got out early and went to the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center.  Our guide Victor has been amazing in getting us into the locations quickly and showing us exactly where to go and when.  We saw month old pandas and toddler pandas and kindergarten age pandas (11 month old or so) and then three year old pandas and older.  They were beyond adorable.  

There were so many cute pandas and we have hundreds of pictures... so hard to choose just a few.

We were done with that center by 11am and then our guide Victor dropped us off with another guide named Ocean who took us through a local market.  She handed us each a red envelope with a mission and yuan and we each had to complete the mission.  Abby's mission was to order spring rolls in chinese and pay for it.  She had an easy job.  Her limited chinese has been SO helpful on this trip.  She knows basic words and counting... so thankful I brought her.  Ordering water from room service was a challenge until she jumped in and did it for me. Priscilla had to find and order a hundred year egg.  I had never heard of that... so we all got educated on that one.  I had to order and make chaoshou which is similar to a dumpling.  After the market, we went to a local restaurant and learned to cook some really amazing meals.  We've decided that the best food we've had so far was the food we cooked and the airplane food on our Air China flight!  We are working to find some more amazing food.  

Here are some pics: 

Our food was so good!