Walking to Starbucks was interesting again, I left about 15 minutes later than I wanted, so I power walked. I met up with Josh, Jamie, Tavani and Bree, but powered past them since I was trying to time how quickly I could walk there. I only arrived there a few seconds earlier than they did as I had to wait at a light. Walking back I noticed a crossing guard chewing out a woman walking in the bike lane, eventually the woman got up on the sidewalk.
We left the hotel at 8:30 for the Panda preserve, I was already "glowing", from the heat and humidity. The Panda preserve is about an hour drive. Once inside it is filled with Bamboo and other greenery, it's pretty large and there are several different locations, the nursery, sub-adult and adult Giant Pandas as well as Red Pandas. Red Pandas are a cross between a fox and a raccoon. One of them we saw had a sore paw. If you want to pay 500 Yuan you can pose with a Giant Panda, it's a nice thought, but not worth $70 to me. Teresa and I wandered back and forth between the exhibits, after visiting the nursery for the second time, we visited the gift shop, Teresa left to visit the powder room. When she didn't come back, I started walking to the exit and saw quite a few from our group, but not Teresa, so I went back looking for her - calling her name as I went. I never found her so I ran back to the exit, she and the rest of the group was waiting for me.
We went to a lunch in our honor at a very nice restaurant close to the Aba Teacher's College. Everyone liked the Romaine lettuce with peanut butter as salad dressing.
The reception at the college was amazing. Doc, Teresa and I had to enter first. As we got off the bus we were greeted by officials from the college and had a red and gold scarf placed around our neck. On both sides of the walk way were men and women in traditional Tibetan and Mongolian costumes, they had been waiting in the hot sun for us for 2 hours. They walked us into a cool building, up 5 flights of stairs to an auditorium packed with students. When we walked in the entire auditorium cheered. We did the rock star thing again, taking pictures and shaking hands before the concert started. Teresa, Jeff and I had to sit in the front row along with officials from the school. After the concert was more picture taking, then the students took us down to the lobby to look at art work that will be displayed at a museum (University?) in Michigan. We also looked at pictures of the area after the earthquake 2 years ago.
We are all amazed at how quickly the area has recovered from the quake, it's pretty hard to believe that there was one so recently.
We drove about 15 minutes to the Film & Television College of Sichuan Normal University. This university has 4200 students and trains many of the actors and television hosts and anchor people. We were greeted by students and given a tour of the school. Two of the girls I talked to had very good english, one was a student there, the other was going to law school and was good at debating. When we walked past a pond they said one side was "Valentine Lake" and the other side was "Break-up Lake" Dinner was buffet style and delicious.
The performance is in a theatre, they have television cameras and monitors and the crowd goes wild!!!!!! Back stage some of the girls were worried that I wasn't getting into my concert dress, I said I wasn't one of the singers, so then they thought I was in the orchestra, I said I wasn't and I said something about the kids, which they thought was amazing. I told them that no, I wasn't a student, I was a chaperone. I tried to sit backstage and journal, but two gals came over to talk to me. They wanted my career advice about teaching English in America and just wanted to talk. One of the gals said she wanted to talk to me because I was so nice and friendly. That's the second time I've heard it, so I wonder what their experience is with other Americans.
They were going to have 2 of their groups do traditional dance so I went out to the auditorium. The first was men and women in Tibetan garb, the next group of women got up to do a dance with fans, but the sound system wouldn't work for them. Our group went up on stage for a couple of numbers, then the fan dancers did their dance and our group finished up. At the gift exchange several in our group got flowers and then the mob began. As I was walking past Josh I heard him say "I'm sorry, I have a girlfriend" and I added "Ya, and she's here" (the girl had asked him for a kiss). Dustin Ginn had one of the dancers give him her fan. Dustin is popular since he's tall. blond and cute. 6 more days and they'll be back to reality.
The drive back to the hotel is short - only 15 minutes.
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