Pandas and Poo!

I won't post for a little while, not out of laziness now, but because I'm trying to get out of Chengdu and visit Hanoi (the capital of Vietnam, for our geographically-challenged readers) before my vacation is over (February 20th). Also, I have to go a little earlier than planned because I'm clearing out tonight and crashing at Douglas' place until I go, due to the "rat problem" at my place. I know, eww, whatever. It's being taken care of. I went rat-hunting (non-lethal) last night, and discovered one of their nests in our heating unit. Complete with dead rat. But enough about that.

Saturday I went to Wolong, 4 hours west of here, to see the giant panda reserve and research base they have there. And so, you'll find my flickr has 10 adorable pictures of young pandas gamboling and the like, around the research base. The scenery was beautiful, as Wolong is in the mountains, and halfway up they were winter wonderlands. We also saw wild monkeys on the way. Obviously wild, cause they were afraid of us instead of mugging us, like some places. Now, I don't eat meat, but for some reason it makes me even sadder than seeing animals killed to see the way some people treat wild animals, zoo animals too, throwing food at them, yelling at them like they're at the circus... I'm not pointing any fingers, but it's gross. Those pandas in the research base are going to grow up dysfunctional fo sho. (The next day).

I'm leaving you with a song for my friend Sal, about poo (not rat poo). Written by a camper named Charlie the summer of 2001. The summer at camp Sal and I (and Molly) saw like 35 moonsets together. A beautiful summer, a beautiful song (sort of).