Pandas – Aidan Doyle

Arctic Pandas

Aidan — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 01:44:57 +0000

I’ve started another round the world trip. I’m going up to the Arctic circle in Norway, then down to Antarctica. First stop was Japan. Due to the evil machinations of Typhoon Usagi (which stopped flights transiting through Hong Kong), the start of my vacation was delayed by 2 days. I spent a couple of nights in both Tokyo and Osaka, visiting friends as well as checking out a couple of tourist attractions.

I visited Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo, where it doesn’t take long to figure out who are the zoo’s favorite attractions.

Other bears are required to work harder for their food.

I visited Tokyo’s new Sky Tree, one of the tallest towers in the world (634m). The day was overcast, but there were still some amazing views over Tokyo. I wouldn’t want to visit on a weekend though, there would be a long wait to get in.

Tokyo does its best to ensure smokers are safely confined in “manner stations”.

3.00 in the morning Your dog desperately needs a haircut or spa treatment Fear not, Dog Siesta has you covered 24 hours a day.

Although I don’t have any formal archaeological training, I had my doubts whether this reconstruction of a moai was 100% historically accurate. It turns out I was mistaken. Reliable sources inform me this is a rare example of the cross-dressing vampire moai.

I am fond of reading the Engrish on products and clothing in Japan. T-shirts in particular can have some interesting phrasing. A couple of examples I noticed this time:

Cut me some Sloan
What dose love mean to you
God Rock Music is Never Die

I also saw a woman wearing a dress that had text on it reading: This is my new black dress
It was indeed a black dress, but I was unable to verify its newness.

I also visited Shinjuku’s new robot restaurant that features an hour-long show composed of scantily-clad women riding giant robots. Naturally, such a show held little interest for me.

The restaurant’s tastefully decorated waiting room gives you some indication of the subtle and understated effect the show’s producers are aiming for.

Pandamonium

Aidan — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:45:50 +0000

In Beijing I went to the panda house at Beijing Zoo.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRZ9aX8eG4Q

Total Eclipse of the Terracotta Pandas

Aidan — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 09:03:04 +0000

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).

Disaster Aftermath Action Tips:
If you are dramatically rescued from the scene of a disaster, make sure you mention the name of a popular company in your first words.

There was a big earthquake in Sichuan province last year. One boy was pulled from the rubble after being trapped for 80 hours. His first words were that he wanted a cold Coke. He became a local celebrity known as Coke Boy and Coke have agreed to pay for his university education.