Aug. 18 - Chengdu's Got Talent! [Day 3]

The 9:30 sharp departing bus was filled with warm atmosphere this morning despite the chilly weather. We reached Telus World of Science pretty quickly immediately rushing off to the Body Works section. I explained quite a lot in there to my new buddy, such as "Oh, this is a cows tongue" and "This is what our intestines look like". It was very interesting for the kids.

When we went into the Star Theatre to watch the epic story of the planets in our solar system, my buddy explained to me that her school also had a globe shaped theatre like this (but much smaller) which they used to watch the stars. The only problem with it was that it was all described in English (the graphics and effects were intense so it kinda made up for the language issue). Despite being told that the audience should be fairly "quiet" during the show, I could faintly hear all the caring buddies from Edmonton whispering the stories in Chinese to our Chengdu friends. I thought that was really sweet of everyone!

For the few that were still tired, they had a 40 minute nap on the extremely comfy chairs. After the star show, we rushed onto the bus and was eager to get lunch. During the bus ride, we dashed over a speed bump, causing us to be lifted off our seats; everyone burst out laughing at the surprise. Then, our awesome bus driver took the speaker and said in very airline-captain voice "Welcome to Beijing Airlines, this is your captain speaking. We are experiencing a little turbulence. Please remember to keep your seat belt on. Thank you!" Everyone cracked up all the way to our picnic lunch.

We ended up in a picnic site (kingdom of the mosquitoes), where yummy pizza was brought to us. As everyone sat down around the pizza on the table, each Chengdu youth was seated in front of 1 box of pizza, so they acted as if it was their duty to get rid of all the pizza in the box next to them. It then turned into a contest. It was so funny seeing them slap on slices of pizza on random people's plates.

In Valley Zoo, we got special treatment and participated in many animal encounters and behind-the-scenes-animals. One of the main attractions was the close up look at the tiger feeding. It was hilarious when the zookeeper mentioned that if the big cat lifted its tail, it had to pee. At that moment, the tiger lifted her tail causing everyone to jump back quickly looking really anxious, not wanting to get sprayed! But it was a false alarm!

We also received a close up with the red pandas which were a-d-o-r-a-b-l-e!! The zookeepers brought out a boa constrictor that we could pet. Too bad my buddy was terrified of snakes and was too scared to pet it.

The Wildrose Cafe was next on our schedule. Dinner was full of yummy burgers, chicken wings and spring rolls. I was learning how to speaking Sze Chuan language while we were chowing down. The first thing I learned was to say "What are you doing", which when I pronounced it sounding like "Do you want a dumpling?" No one knew about the fun that was in store for them next. When every plate was licked clean, the Karaoke mic was taken out. The Chengdu kids were such confident and good singers! One of the boys surprised everyone by volunteering to sing almost every second song. My buddy was a very intense Chinese rapper. We should have had our own Chengdu (in Edmonton)'s Got Talent right in that room. We covered songs from "Welcome to Beijing" to "Thankful Heart" to "Selling Chinese Dumplings"!

When the mic was finally put down an hour later, everyone retired back to the hotel for a good night's rest.

Megan

Over and out (Oh my goodness, look at the time!)