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The last day and night in Chendu was not planned so we all relished in the chance to do some market shopping and went about finding cheap DVD’s, Nike tee-shirts, handbags and shoes. Anna, Julie and I went shopping together and bargained as hard as we could and had a heap of fun buying trinkets and cheap rubbish for work colleagues and friends. Two of my favourite buys are my Bani Rabbit handbag and my pussy-cat wallet. We were getting so much tacky stuff, pig-lighters, key chains etc. that when we stumbled upon ‘nail art’, pictures for your fingernails, we all had to have something painted on. I settled for a bright red paint with a white hibiscus flower hand-painted on and I think Anna got some night sky scape and Julie had a ‘nice’ flower motif – all for $10 – and I’m sure we were ripped off. We had a great time and seeing as we’d eaten Chinese food for the last 9days we rushed at the chance to eat McDonalds, even though it didn’t taste quite the same it was sweet relief from the many banquets we had come accustomed.

This trip was so much fun and I met some really lovely people with whom I still keep in touch. I would love to go back to China and see the great wall and hunt down some more bargains so Beijing is now on my list of place I’d love to see.

Next we were off to Jiuzhaigou (Joo-Sigh-Go). Never heard of it? None of us had – just last year the airport opened and not many European type travellers have been, so 18 Aussie travel agents were quite a sight to the locals. Jiuzhaigou (Valley of Nine villages) is a stunningly beautiful place known for its natural wonders of lakes, springs, waterfalls, streams and rivers.

Not knowing anything about Jiuzhaigou I found it strange that when running up the three flights of stairs to our hotel room that first night that I was completely exhausted and collapsed on the bed in a heap. I feared all fitness was lost until someone consulted the nearest guide book at dinner and found out that we were actually at 3000 feet above sea level and the airport was 6000 feet above sea level and even sold oxygen cans.

I can safely say that the main thing that will be remembered about Jiuzhaigou is the hospitality of the locals. There is a liquid that is given at every meal, which name escapes me, but we all called it fire-water, that must be sculled at every speech, and with meeting every new person. It is their custom. Greg, a big Aussie guy with blonde hair was the toast of the town and held his own at every drinking session. At one stage even dancing with the Minister of Sichuan Province on his shoulders and managing to toast to everyone in the room!

The town put on all kinds of shows for us and I even met the largest man in all of China, he is well over 2metres tall and I only came up to his armpit.

This place is great shopping for pashminas and being quite cold there you need them! The town is called the fairy village as there are hundreds of lights in all the tress and it is truly a winter wonderland with snow capped mountains in the distance.

We were heading back to Chendu for our last night and said good-bye to all the locals, which will remember us as the drinky-drinky bunch from Australia for many years.

The next day we spent at an irrigation centre, none of us were happy about going there as it sounded like a school excursion and most of us just wanted to go shopping. When we got there it was a lovely big garden with amazing ancient engineering ingenuity from 2200 years ago, to tame the floods of the Min River and irrigate farming zones. We also visited the Sanxingdui Museum which is a modern museum covering 20hectares highlighting the culture and history of the Guanghan city. There were pieces there that were traced back to the pyramids.

We were also privileged to see the Sichuan Opera with the dance of the many masks. This place was great, while we ate men came around to give us a neck and shoulder massage and even – quite bizarrely at the dinner table – clean peoples ears out with a long metal rod and a few pieces of cotton. Very strange to see at the dinner table.

The next day we spent time shopping at the markets and visited the Bund, alongside the Huangpu River, made famous by traders, a landmark of the old and new city. Then flew to Chendu, home of the Giant Panda.

Chendu was great, just how I’d expected China to look with loads of pedi-cabs and bicycles everywhere.

The highlight was the Giant Panda Feeding Reserve, where I took so many pictures of the cute pandas many of them had to be deleted later when I’d run out of memory on the digital camera. There was even a baby panda I named Pinky, his eyes weren’t even open yet.

They were really cute and I’d promised to buy my Mum a toy panda to make up for the time that she had her tonsils out at 5yrs and the girl in the hospital bed next to her got one as a gift and Mum wanted one but never got one. Unfortunately for Mum, Royce fell in love with the toy panda ‘ping-ping’ I bought home and couldn’t give him up. Ping-ping now sleeps in our bed. Sorry Mum.

That night we were in for a treat, we were told that we would be privilege to a Chinese Massage and we were all ushered into this place that was several stories high with about 10 rooms on each floor. We all looked around quite suspicious that it was some kind of brothel. The staff were all giggling at us as we arrived and I was in the first group to be taken into one of the rooms with four other girls. We had no idea of what was going on. There was a big commotion as I had a skirt on and I was the only girl to have a guy masseuse. I asked for a girl masseuse, trying not to offend the guy but they didn’t understand and came back with some shorts for me to put on. I put them on as everyone giggled some more and settled on the foot of the massage bed with buckets of water. I tried to converse with them but they didn’t have any English, but were all quite friendly and we communicated with sign language best we could. My guy was terribly hard and I had to ask him several times to be gentler but his traditional training must have forbid it and my bruise from slipping the bathroom the night before got a real working over. The massage was one and a half hours long and most centred around the feet. At one stage the lady massaging Jacky, the girl next to me, tried to tell her that her toenails were too long. I picked up the sign-language and laughed with her, nodding and mimicking her finger scissors. Next thing we knew this guy came in with a lamp and a little kit and pulled out a scalpel and started to shave the toenail as close as possible to her toe. Jacky was screaming and couldn’t watch I tried to tell her to remain calm and not squirm so her toe wasn’t accidentally taken off, but he was pretty good at it, obviously an expert – a toenail cutting expert. I was secretly relieved that mine were nice and short. The massage was very hard and hurt quite a bit, but the relaxation afterwards when they finally stopped was lovely. We tried to give them a tip but were told it was all taken care of for our group. We found out they only got paid $12 for all that work, and I’d guess that more than half that would go to the proprietors.

That night we went to the Shangri-la for a huge Chinese banquet. The first of many to come. Being at the Shangri-la we didn’t expect to be served chicken feet, but we were and much to our disgust later we realised that we’d eaten duck’s balls. Yes, upon asking what that particular dish was the waitress gave us a funny look, went away, presumable to ask the chef, came back after speaking to the other waitress and said Duck. Well duck, that’s alright and a couple of us started digging in. Stacey, the girl from Lismore sitting next to be ate some and said, hmm, crunchie, but not good crunchie, so I asked the girl again, what was this dish? She went away to her friend again and came back with the reply “Duck” then cupped her hands and gave us a big smile. We all understood, and the look on Stacey’s face was priceless. After that a few jokes about low flying ducks had us in hysterics for the next few days and we decided it was best not to ask what we were eating. It’s all part of the fun right?!

Finally we reached Shanghai. A very exciting city, it was after 10pm when we reached our hotel so a few of us met at the bar to get better acquainted. The next morning we woke to a very hot, humid day which was also pouring with rain. So we started off with a few hours at the Shanghai Museum, which was really fascinating and is said to be on the best museums in China. It may have been even more fascinating had we of used the head-set commentary which a couple of the guards there tried to mime to us were available but we didn’t understand what they were trying to say to us, until it was time to leave.

Then despite the rain we headed off to the Yu Gardens, a typical traditional Chinese garden surrounded by shops and restaurants. A lucky day for one umbrella street seller, hitting the jackpot as we came off the bus and all grabbed umbrellas at about $2 each. We traversed through many street stores and smelt some very pungent food smells, all the while trying to memorise where the good market stalls where and how to get back to them.

By the time the group made it to the entrance of the gardens we had lost two from our group, somewhere in the markets. After waiting about 30mins we decided to all split up and look through the garden maze ourselves. We didn’t have a guide or a map or even realise how big this place was and soon the group had spilt up again. After walking around and around, never quite working out where the entrance was and how to get out, we were quite lost, we stumbled upon the two girls who had been missing earlier. They had been sitting at the wrong entrance to the gardens for an hour and a half. So we picked them up and started again to find the place where we first came in. After about another 30mins we found the rest of the group and stuck close by them for the remainder of the day.

I was at a work cocktail function in the Billich Gallery at the rocks for the Shangri La Hotel group and struck up a conversation with this guy and his wife about the art. The theme was China, focused around the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics and the conversation soon focused on travelling. (As it so often does at travel functions). I’d never been to China and was listening with interest as this guy Ken, who obviously loves the place went on and on about the people, the beauty the history and the culture.

A few weeks later I got a call from Ken asking if I would like to join his travel agent group to China next week!! “But I don’t sell your product! I even have a rival product with Royal Orchid Holidays! Are you sure you want to invite me??” Never one to pass up an opportunity to travel I quickly shrugged off Royce’s concerns of this guy trying to make a move on me off-shore and organised my holidays and got a visa.

Next thing I knew I was on my way to Shanghai with Air China. Within the travel industry we make up little sayings about each airline and with the two letter airline code of AC, AirChina’s was Always Crashes, which a friend reminded me a couple of days before my flight.

The flight was less than comfortable, with people feeling it was their right to have a cigarette in the toilet, despite the no-smoking signs everywhere and the only entertainment being the first Spiderman movie, which came out two years ago. But at least it didn’t live up to its AC: Always Crashes name.