Koby Schellenger for Wisconsin's 53rd Assembly

I wanted to write a post about my friend Koby Schellenger, who is running for Assembly in Wisconsin's 53rd Assembly District. I have known Koby since high school and proud to support him as he delivers a message guided by his conviction to improve education, conditions for workers, and the economy. It should be refreshing for anyone who takes a look at Koby's website, www.votekoby.com, to see a candidate who clearly articulates what they would like to accomplish and not just stand by age old political platitudes. Koby is an accessible candidate who is always available to answer questions or discuss issues that are important to the constituent's of the 53rd District.

Please visit www.votekoby.com and follow Koby on twitter @vote4koby. Thanks!

Life's Impenetrable Chain Mail

Just as I had gotten used to the idea that my days were numbered and accepted the fact that this was the end to my adventures in China I get hit in the face with a tomato that came in the form of an announcement from Claressa. We were going to Beijing on Tuesday. We had been told when we signed up that we were going there but once we arrived in Wuhan learned to our dismay that the trip was no longer on the docket. Now, after months of asking about whether we could make it work and getting negative responses we are told a day prior to embarking. I should be excited but instead I am filled with worries and am in general discombobulated by the idea. For one, I did not manage my finances for such an outing. Two: I am losing some of my precious time with Claire. After events at home flipped upside down I have started to cultivate the relationship I should have been having all along and its filling me with some sorrow that I have to leave. Time was short; now its microscopic. Anyways, I have worked out through my dear friend Brian Busha a hookup in Beijing. It will be great to get to know one of the people that he knew during his stay and provide some insight on how life was for him.

Today, while we were sorting out the madness that was occuring in the office as a result of trying to get three people to Beijing and back in less than 24 hours we were hit with a second tomato. This crowd was getting feisty. Our two economics professors were hanging out and I talked with them a bit as I think they are fantastic. But it slowly became apparent that they weren't there by coincidence and had a defined purpose for being in the same place at the same time. No one informed us, but we were going on a field trip to some technology enterprises that just happened to begin...RIGHT NOW! Oh shit - I'm not dressed for any occasion and haven't showered. In fact, I'm wearing a silly shirt that says "Wuhan Prison" on it with skull and crossbones galore which confused some and inspired fear in many. It was an awkward turn of events but turned out to be pretty sweet. We took the tour of the factories and saw lasers and other machine equipment. It was kind of strange to see workers in such a situation without safety percautions like steel toed shoes, goggles, and hardhats. I shouldn't be surprised; the Chinese seem to have a death wish in most situations, and this was no exception.

In the evening I took Mandy to one of my favorite resteraunts. Normally I am fairly decent at making at least some semblance of conversation with the girl that is always at the desk but tonight I totally struck out. From this I found out she speaks some English and I was astonished because normally when I struggle with Chinese with a native speaker they will pull out English right away to bail my ass out. I am actually really greatful that she normally doesn't because its one of the few things that helps me learn how to construct sentences. Anyways, Mandy and I sat down with our rice dishes and talked for a good while. Good talk too, learned a lot about what our situations were going to be like going home.

Claire surprised me with a visit after dinner. I had texted her earlier to say I was leaving for Beijing the next day. Apparently she took this as meaning I was going home early and she was scared to death by such an abrupt departure. Of course I was able to calm her nerves, at least for the time being, that this was only for a few days. It really struck me though how hard things were going to be in two weeks. I won't be sad that we connected so well, but I will feel the hurt that will set in knowing full well that we may never see each other again.

Just another day riding through life. My right directional light may be blinking right but there is always someone in the passenger seat eager to grab the wheel and steer me left. I guess I just need to face the fact that this rig is on autopilot and even though I'm manning the controls its just a false sense of security and I need to just roll with the punches. Tomorrow I leave for Beijing and there is nothing I can do about it but enjoy the time I have.

Inebriation > Inhibition

Friday came and I was unsure of how to proceed with the final two weeks of my journey. It was beginning to feel like this truly was the end and that I just needed to accept it and allow the dwindling hours to run their course like the flame of a candle. The modest day began with some basic ordeals like laundry, studying Chinese, lunch, etc. I went for a jog and decided this truly was mediocrity. Soon enough Kurt gave me a call and let me know that him and Allen were heading to the gym. Why not? I was filled with hopes of Allen amazing me by revealing that he was in fact a world class weight lifter.

That of course did not occur, but we did manage to pull off a modest work out. We decided to hit up dinner. We met up with some friends and enjoyed some noodles together. Max, one of the Kyrgistanias, was with us and I asked him if he wanted to hit a bar later. He doesn't speak English so it was a little difficult for us to plan out the details of the evening in Chinese but we managed to do it. He wanted to meet at 11pm so I said that was okay. Around 10 he stopped by my room to say he had to meet up with a friend and that he'd meet me at the Vox at 11. I decided to head down early to pound a few cold ones outside on the street before heading in.

At the Vox, I did just what I set out to do and made some small talk with some ladies. Self esteem boosted, I proceded to meet some bros that I could later get to buy me some drinks. The plan went smoothly, and soon I had myself together a posse for the night who I could count on. Went in early with the new friends and there was a hardcore punk show playing. Fuck yes. Started moshing with the crazier breed of Chinese who wanted to dance on people's faces. We had a great time and soon I added some new members to my cult. We all shared many a brew and talked sparingly as our vocabularies in the other side's respective language was starting to dwindle. Max and company showed up late and seemed to be lacking energy. Out of obligation I split from my hommies to pay my respects to my dorm mates. They spoke in Russian for the most part and the fat guy who thinks I hate Muslims gave me the stink eye the whole time. He truly is a goutish fucker. I'm uncomfortable up to my ball sack and no one noticed. Except one. Just as I'm thinking about slashing my wrists in a desperate attempt to steal the show an Australian voice from behind me makes the observation that I don't belong with the Russian sideshow. I quickly agree and am handed two shots. Fuck...I hate shots...or do I? Perhaps its the excitement of seeing native English speakers or the punk music still flowing through my veins but I start to pound down shots like a coal miner after his first visit to the saloon in months. The Australian (Phil) was accompanied by his heterosexual life mate Frank. Phil and Silent Frank would have been perfect because the shit coming out of these guys' mouths could have been straight out of a Kevin Smith movie. Many drinks later the bar closed. Damn. I'm about to go home and Phil states that I am clearly "cool shit" and invites me to go with them to a club. I hate clubs, but for a split second I was willing to pretend that it was only a minor discomfort. We get to the club which if I didn't know better would have thought I was in the middle of Milwaukee. There were African people everywhere! So I started dancing and there were girls heading for us white folk. I thought it was because of our good looks but it turns out the suave guys knew some people. So we are dancing and I'm drunk and my mind was beginning to decide that some bad decisions are going to happen if we don't leave soon...

BAM! Frank gets slammed to the floor. Shits going down. My heart was beating fast and I sobered up momentarily to take in the new situation. I didn't know the details but I was in. I threw myself in to get Frank's back and deftly get elbowed in the face. After a little bit of a scuffle the bouncers got involved and we were rejected. The strangest thing about this incident was that as we left, neither Frank nor Phil made any mention of it. The next thing out of Phil's mouth was "let's get some McDonalds."

We head to McDonalds where Phil tries to convince Frank that he needs to get some ladies. Frank has some issues about acting the way he feels guys have to to get women. "Girls love douchebags...and I am not a douchebag." I agree, I think it is pretty well documented that girls like the worst type of men. I get invited to a party the next evening but after looking at my eye in the mirror decide I might have had enough for one weekend. Fucking China.

Thanksgiving D-Lite

Today was one of the stranger days I've had which I feel says a lot considering I'm in China. For weeks our program director, Claressa, has been pressing Mandy and myself to be in this speech competition. An English speech competition. That's right; I can only imagine she wanted to use our obviously concrete knowledge of English to score a trophy for the international department. At first I clearly refused - I didn't want to be the asshole American who steals some kids glory that came about through weeks of hard work and preperation with a shitty speech I wrote two minutes before the competition. She took this news and dwealt on it. Next day she tells us that our speeches would not be ranked but would instead be an example for the other students. I still protested but was guilted into it thinking I would be doing something good to help these aspiring Chinese students understand English communication better.

The moment of truth reared its ugly head like the news of a child that you didn't know about birthed from a woman that you wished you didn't know you had sex with. Upon arriving at the site where the competition took place several Chinese people started pinning laminated numbers to our shirts. Why were we being put into the rotation of speakers? Clearly this has to be a mistake. As I glanced around at the WTF faces displayed on the other Chinese students who were trying to figure out what they were up against I had one question: How long will this take? We had prior to knowing about the competition made plans to have Thanksgiving dinner with some of the other foreigners at an Italian Resteraunt which was serving turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, etc. Trusty Allen was on the case and he came back with an answer. "Maybe it will take four...and one half hours." WHAT? Four and a half hours? It's almost 6:30 now! We protested immediately. We were told an hour and a half tops. After threatening to leave on the spot they decided to push us to the front so we could leave early. Great. Now we look like assholes x2.

The speech competition was explained to us as taking place in three seperate parts. The first was a 2 and a half minute speech on a prepared topic. We were told only that the topic was "You and me." Quite vague, but I was willing to entertain the idea that it was just a poor translation and that the real topic was something that could be explained. I asked many Chinese people about it and no one could really give me an answer. Anyways, I made up some gungho talk about how we are all the same and that we all have the same concerns. The second part was an improv speech, and we were going to get the topic ten minutes before we spoke. When I got my topic I could not believe what had just happened. Imagine opening a fortune cookie and misplacing the cookie part...and you might have some semblance of understand about what I experienced. I was given a small, elongated piece of white paper with the following phrase on it: With enough will anything is possible. I began to check the piece of paper for the red print that teaches you basic Chinese characters because it looked like it could have been from the center of a fortune cookie. I gave my speeches and waited for the question round. Now, if you were in my situation you would probably have thought that this question would have been somehow relevant to the topics I talked about...or at the very least been something about me. No, it was time to play trivia persuit. The two questions that were asked were "Who is the current Prime Minister of Great Britain" and "What is the formal name of the U.K.?" W-T-F.

Well, we high tailed it out of there in a fast, worried that mobs of upset Chinese students would hate us for blowing the following speeches out of the water. So, we headed for Giannos for dinner time. We were welcomed by a helpful but perky young waiter who quickly sat us down and promoted the turkey dinner they were featuring that night. There was no question among us that we all wanted the dinner. Oh wait, he left out one small detail...they only had one left. But, why did you just promote it to us sir? Did you not think that MAYBE more then one of us would want it? We needed a game changer, so we suggested that we make these lemons into...pizza. Yes, for the first time in my life I can say I have had Thanksgiving pizza. We asked that we have the dinner spread across four pizzas so we could all share. Rohelio, our Mexican friend, quickly jumped up and asked if he could help make the pizzas. I think they felt bad that they didn't have enough food for us so they obliged. Great. We were all Americans sitting around the table, in a China at an Italian resteraunt...having a Mexican dude make our pizza. It was a bizzare concept that we joked about for a bit but I have to say, it was a damn good pizza. We coined it "Thanksgiving D-Lite" and suggested that the resteraunt make it a permanent additon to the menu. We took a picture just in case they needed a photo to put next to it in the menu.

Life is strange. Just when you think that the conditions in your life are going just how you wanted and you feel completely happy something takes ahold of the back of your head and slams it into a wall. That's how I feel right now and I look forward to coming home. I miss each and everyone of you to the nth degree. If I seem crazy or weird when I come back please understand that I am coming back from a journey that almost made me go completely insane. Many of you cats have journeyed abroad before and I always envied you for your pursuits and dreamed that one day I would be able to tell exciting tales of my own. I'm not sure if its been for the best or not yet; I think and dearly hope that one day I will see it that way. But for now, I can simply say that my adventure turned out quite differently.

Xi'an: Part 2

The next day we woke up to a Western styled breakfast in the hotel resteraunt. The food was arguably Western, but they did have coffee which was okay by me. We got off to a late start because one of our comrades had fallen ill. So we set out with the intention of making our first stop a silk factory. We got a little lesson on the process of weaving the silk together and the different techniques used. Interesting, but everyone had shopping on their minds. Claressa (our program director) and Li Laoshi (my host mom) set out to get some deals on silk. Actually, I think the way the situation played out was Li Laoshi wanted to buy while Claressa tried to talk her out of it. This power struggle went on for quite some time delaying the day for what seemed like a long time. I had already made my purchase of two simple kerchiefs - one to bring home for Ashlee and one for Mandy who I felt bad couldn't make it because she was sick. We looked around at other pricy items such as rugs and qi pao (traditional clothes). After depressing ourselves by examining the price tags and realizing how poor we really were, we decided to grab lunch and head to the Huashan Mountain.

So imagine all of us climbing into the cable car and the first thing out of our tourguide's mouth is "This is the most dangerous cable car in Asia!" I just started laughing, but she didn't understand what was so funny. I think I've decided that she meant the mountain was dangerous...but maybe it was yet another Asian pride thing and the fact that they had the most dangerous cable car truly was a boon to their ego. In any case, we lived. The mountain was fantastic; I can't even fathom more beautiful sights. Huashan Mountain is considered one of the five must see mountains in China. Our tour guide told us a story about how a famous Chinese author wrote some Kung Fu series about the mountain. After going into the details of the stories she explained that the author actually had never been to the mountain until he was seventy or something. Dumbbbbbbb.

There of course, as with all mountains in China it seems, was a strong historical connection to Daoism. It also is a place that naive Emporeors would try to go to for the purpose of obtaining immortality. Anyways, the mountain was pretty dangerous. The main path up the mountain was extremely steep and I'm suprised at how long Claressa and my host mom came with Kurt and I. Eventually they said enough was enough and that they'd wait for us while we went to the top. We went up the path making mental notes of all the random dudes with computers and printers hanging out making a profit off instant photos. Clever turnips. At the top we regarded ourselves as gods sitting high above the world at the Seat of Heaven. I contemplated how long it would take to tumble all the way down to the bottom and slowly backed away from the edge. On the way down Claressa made an observation that this would be the best place for "revenge." I asked her if we were friends and she said "I don't think so."

Anyways, she didn't try to kill me even though I'd constantly howl like a wolf in a sincere gesture of pissing her off. It didn't work for the most part, she thought it was funny. I think my wolf sound is more like a puppy. I did get some random Chinese folks who weren't visible to me to howl back. As we made our way back we made note of a shortcut! Except by shortcut I mean climb down a crazy stone ladder thing that took you down to the lower part of the trail. Fuck it...I'm in. Kurt and I climbed down.

That night we decided to go get food at this place that was supposed to be really prominent in Xi'an. It was reccomended to us by Kurt's China guide book. Bullshit. The service was terrible, the food was subpar. Expensive. And worst of all...they closed at 9. What the hell? We had barely sat down and they were practically kicking us out. Of course they made no mention of this while we were ordering.

Anyways, the night seemed to be going nowhere. Mandy was sick. Kurt wasn't looking to go out. I was sober and it was making me uncomfortable. I decided to hit the street and grab some beers - perhaps take a stroll around the city wall. I found a vendor right away and grabbed a couple of beers from him and spoke what little Chinese we could. Then I started to wander in an arbitrary direction to see what the night would bring to me. From what I could tell, I was in a really bad area...even by Chinese standards. The proof was walking straight at me as I was thinking this. A middle aged woman quietly asked me a question. I didn't understand, so I asked her to repeat. This time I heard what she was selling loud and clear. "xiao mei" - - - little beauties. Immediately I started walking away nervously laughing and stating very firmly I wasn't interested. Of course she followed me for a bit until she decided I was a lost cause or perhaps because I seemed to be walking into an even worse area. Sleeping bags were out everywhere and people were just sleeping in filth. I was caught off guard...I hadn't seen this on the level I was seeing it right at that moment. This was like...whole families just bundled together trying to keep warm. I quickly pounded my beer down and grabbed another. Eventually I found my way to the city gate. It was beautifully lit up and quickly cheered me up from the poverty I had just whitnessed. After admiring it and realizing I'd see it up close the next day I decided it was time to head back and see if I could get a couple more beers from my buddy near the hotel. As I passed the McDonalds about four prostitutes came at me to get my business. Let me repeat that. In front of the McDonalds was a troupe of hookers looking for work. Woah! You can get a Big Mac and a blow job in one conveinent location. The question this time didn't come to me in Chinese however. "Sir...fuck?" I was totally blown away. The question was so crude and yet did not waste time. This was serious business. The blood thirsty vixens were just waiting for the American to whip out some green. I laughed again because clearly I had not prepared myself for dealing with this kind of situation before. As I was saying "Bu yao, bu yao"(don't want) they started to play a fucking game of cherades with me, pantomiming what sex was. Again, I replied with a laugh and "wo zhi dao" (I know). They too tried to follow me for a ways until I told them I wasn't interested in women and that I liked dudes. This disapointed some and perlexed all. This was my exit, and I went down the street with a big grin on my face. Fortunately the beer vendor was just closing up shop but let me grab two more on my way back up to the hotel where I contemplated what had just happened.

The next day was the final day of our trip, and as it was short I decided it didn't merit its own post. That's right - deal with it. After packing our stuff together we headed to a meat shop where they were chopping up some mean mutton. It looked delicious, and then Claressa hands us a slab of it. "Eat this." It wasn't cooked and I was fearful of the worms I would get as a result...but I couldn't resist. Delicious raw meat...mmmmhmmm. It was so good. Anyways, next stop was the city wall. Our tour guide told us some impressive facts; oldest city wall in China, buildings couldn't be taller than the wall, we could ride a bike on it, etc. We took a stroll for a bit and I had to admit it was kind of cool. A nice relaxing end to the trip after climbing mountains and seeing performances. This was a welcome break from the intense past couple of days. There isn't much to say that I can remember so I'll just put some pictures up which will represent the situation a little better.

Xi'an: Part 1

On Sunday I packed my things for my final school sanctioned trip to Xi'an. I bundled together some snacks, books, iPod, DS, and clothes and headed downstairs where Claresa and my host mom were awaiting us. We took a van down to the train station and boarded a train which appeared to be straight out of a Harry Potter book. We all situated ourselves and enjoyed conversation until it was lights out and we tried to get some comfort out of our rock hard cots.

In the morning we found ourselves in the ancient city of Xi'an. It was one of the four capitals of China during ancient times during the Tang, Zhou, Qin, Han, and Sui dynasties. After dropping our stuff off at the hotel we headed to a Mausoleum from the Tang dynasty. Within its halls were many miniture sized terra cotta figurines. Apparently there had been more antiquities in the tomb but they were stolen by grave robbers for the most part. It was a neat little museum but most of the halls had not yet been opened to the general public. We climbed to the top where it was explained that the landscape surrounding the tomb had been picked because of its feng shui. Bullshit if you ask me, but whatevs. On the way down I made a comment to Claresa explaining that I should have brought my shovel so that we too could try to make a steal at some golden treasure. She replied "Alex you're a dick" and was immediately embarassed because she wanted to say "Alex you're a digger?" Hilarity ensued.

Next stop was a shameless attempt to make us buy stuff. I almost bought an "authentic terra cotta miniture" but was told by Claresa to hold off because we could buy similar stuff later for much cheaper. Our tour guide tried to get us to purchase things, clearly on commission, but to no avail. We left the place with pictures of what they were selling but with our short supply of kuai in hand.

Soon we arrived at the site where the full sized terra cotta warriors were. Alright, story time. So the man who first discovered the warriors was a poor rural farmer named Mr. Yang who stumbled upon the underground wonders whilst trying to dig a well. He reported it to the government and thought that his simple life would go on much as it had in the past. Nope. The government takes away their land and pretty much destroys their village to make way for the tourist attraction. No compensation. Enter Queen Elizabeth. She finds the discovery amazing and it blows her royal socks off. The prude decides she's entitled to inquire about the discoverer and wants to meet him. The Chinese authorities are like "Why? He's just some farmer." She persists, not realizing how much damage she will do to this poor man's life. The police seek out our Mr. Yang and mistakenly arrest him because they thought that's what she wanted. Eventually the misunderstanding is straightened out. The government then realizes they need him as part of the attraction. Diplomats and world leaders from all over go to see the site and want to meet this Mr. Yang. The Chinese make him learn some English prior to President Clinton coming to meet him. They sit him down and teach him two basics "How are you" and "Me too," concluding that Clinton will say good. Of course this rural farmer has no fucking idea who Clinton is. So when President Clinton shakes his hand, Mr. Yang mistakenly pronounces How wrong and says "Who are you." Bewildered by the question, Clinton good heartingly says "I'm Hilary's husband," to which Mr. Yang says "Me too." Will his humiliation never cease?

Now you can see the poor man being forced to autograph these overpriced tourist books in a shop near the site. He sits behind a desk pissed off at the world for not letting him do what he loves which is farming. I was told that the government still allows him to farm a couple days of the week. Fuck. Behind this desk he holds a fan in front of his face and a placard which says "No photos." This poor humble farmer's life was completely ruined by the discovery which one would have thought would be a beautiful thing.

So we saw the warriors. Rows and rows of these things in good condition. It was truly an amazing site once you put the story of Mr. Yang out of your mind. There was but one left which had any of its color and it was hidden amongst the things as a sort of Where's Waldo challenge. There is much there, but pictures do a much better job of explaining what we saw so I'll let them speak for themselves.

Tea time! We went to a sweet tea house which up until this point had been unknown to us. Wuhan does not have a very good tea culture so its hard to find such a place. The only other time I've experience tea culture was a visit I made to an artist's studio where he shared stories and a wide variety of teas from all over China. This is something I hope to bring back with me to America. I want to have a tea room in my next apartment complete with Asian styled art and my own tea table.

That evening we were able to go see a performance at this amazing dumpling theatre place which had been patroned by the Clintons, France's Jacques Chirac, etc. Our tour guide managed somehow to get us the table front and center. So, we walk in with our shitty travelling clothes in front of this audience that has obviously dressed up nicely for this occassion. After our middle finger of an entrance we sat down and began to enjoy the meal. Dumplings of all sorts of fillings and shapes we presented to us. The form that the dumpling was made into was an attempt to inform you of its filling. For example, the pork dumpling was sculpted into the image of a pig's face. The show itself was pretty good too. It was a variety of music and dance which when accompanied with beer is a decent way to enjoy your meal. We hesitated when it was time to leave wondering if we should take a moment for some photo ops, but when we saw all the old tourists from America go up on stage we decided we were better than that.

Kurt and I decided that evening to hit the bar street in Xi'an. It was kind of lame because it was Monday night. Basically we just bar hopped to make the bouncers or whatever they were happy and stop calling out broken English to entice us into their businesses. Most of the night was awkward because we were one of the few people out and all attention was on us. We made the best of it and had some really decent conversation and did some brainstorming for the comic I'm currently working on. The talk definitely helped iron out a few of the details I've been struggling with.

Well, that's day one. Tomorrow I'll write about the next day when we made a trek up to Huashan.

PANDAmonium

Yesterday my anticipation was finally rewarded. I've been attempting to make plans to see the pandas for quite some time, but it has been raining every weekend for the past month. No one wants to see a wet sad panda. It truly is a fortunate time to be in Wuhan because normally there would be no pandas. Because of the earthquake earlier this year in Sichuan Province they were moved to the Wuhan Zoo. My guide was my friend Mahong. I was panicking prior to the trip because the battery on my camera has died and so far I have not learned how to say "Lithium Ion" in Chinese. Seems to me this should be lesson number one. Anyways, Mahong came to the rescue with her CAMERA PHONE! Snap. Needless to say they are poor quality pictures but I think the fact that the subject material is a panda that it more then makes up for it.

The bus ride there was a long one but we eventually found ourselves at the gates to the zoo. Of course I would have loved to have run off to see the pandas immediately but decided instead to leave them as the grand finale and instead explore the zoo and see how the Chinese make this insane as well. For the most part there is no difference; lions yawning at a life wasted behind bars, monkeys jerking off in boredom, and visitors constantly disobeying the frequent "don't feed the animals" signs. There was one exhibition that I have, however, not seen in an American zoo: dogs. What the fuck? There are stray dogs everywhere in China - so why the need to put them behind glass for the world to see? Apparently the Chinese find this to be a waste of space as well because I didn't see one person paying any attention to their yapping. The one gorilla I saw was cool though. I peered into his glass cage and he immediately came over curious. I started hopping up and down and he immediately started miming me. I raised my right hand and he would raise his left. I touched my hand to the glass and he did the same. Classy little fellow.

Onto the pandas! It was an auspicious day to be at the zoo because it was the middle of the week and in the evening which translated into very few visitors. It was also lucky because it was just about feeding time for the pandas so they were highly active in anticipation for some savory bamboo. The first panda hanging out in the play area was the male. He clumsily climbed up his wooden playset but remarkably never fell. He even walked out onto a balance beam sort of thing and amazed all of us with his awkward balance. Soon, the door to his cage opened and it was dinner time. Next the female walked onto the stage. Seeing her companion was getting fed she was upset and dismayed. She bounced around the grass and did everything conceivable to get attention from the zoo attendant. She stood on her head. She started eating a tree. Sommersaults. When none of this worked she resorted to make little whining panda noises. Cuuuuute. Still, her efforts did nothing to award her any food. Suprisingly, she wandered over to where I was standing and stuck her face up at me seemingly to look for a handout. I had none, but it presented itself with a good photo opportunity. Soon enough the door to her cage opened and she ran back to it faster than I knew a panda could run. Once they started eating it was quite boring, so we waved goodbye to the pandas and as it was getting dark we decided to head home.

Just one more thing I can scratch off the list of things to do while in China. Its a fortunate thing too, because I think there will be a lot left on the list by the time I go home (Beijing for example). I guess that just gives me the thumbs up to make a return visit at some point. Until next time, 再见！