What do you say to a bear with 2 black eyes? Nothing he's already been told twice :-)

Friday 15th October

Sorry for the bad pun, but we went to the Panda sanctuary this morning and I just could'nt resist!

The place was teeming with the fury little critters many of whom had a fixation with scratching their genitals and lounging about doing very little indeed, which got me thinking that perhaps I was a Panda in a previous life.

It also crossed my mind that as they are totally monochrome they could sit there photocopying their butts all day for practically no money at all, however their lesser cousins the red pandas would rack up a hell of a bill as colour copies are practically double the cost.

Anyway, after this I had one of the strangest experiences of my life. I had a haircut!

We passed a barbers whilst walking around aimlessly trying to find a temple that had closed by the time we got there so I figured why the hell not. We enquired about the price to one of the many barbers standing outside chatting and in perfect english he replied, "30 Yuan" which is about 3 pounds.

So it was that I was hussled in through the entrance, grabbed by a smiley young lady and forced to lie down on a reclining seat, not exactly your usual start to a short back and sides. Still I gave the place the benefit of the doubt and then the strangest thing happened, she started to massage my head, not just a 5 minute temple rub, this was a full on head massage that lasted just under an hour, during which time I had my hair washed no less that 5 times and my head slapped about like a boxer.

I was then hearded into the barbers chair and looked up expectantly into the eyes of the somewhat camp hairdresser we had spoken to on the way in. This is when it dawned on me that he only knew 2 words of English! I have no idea what his school were thinking but roaming the streets of Chengdu there is potentailly a mass of his schoolmates who's sole grasp of the english language is the phrase "30 Yuan".

In order to get an idea of exactly how I was feeling right then you would need to try to put yourself in my shoes. You are in a very small barbers chair, draped in a dayglow yellow bib, being overlooked by a 20 something youth wielding a sharp implement in one hand, glaring down at you with an expression that is a mixture of both pity and doubt.

Needless to say it was a slightly surreal experience, but somehow I managed through the means of interprative hand gestures and a seires of overenthusiastic nods to provide some vague guidance of exactly what it was that I was looking for.

He then proceeded to analyse each individual hair before he begun to perform his artistic magic. Artistic magic is however a very loose term for what he actually produced, in hairdressing circles they would simply call it a super elvis quiff accompanied by half a shave. Yes thats right, he started to shave the right hand side of my face but seemed to have completely lost interest by the time he reached the other side (my head being so big 'n all).

Naturally I did what any red blooded English man would do, I smiled, thanked him, gave him a tip, shook his hand and walked out with my head held high sporting a quiff that blocked out the sun from my eyes and a fully grown half beard!

I had enter the establishment as a mere mortal but upon leaving I had been transformed into "SUPER QUIFF MAN" fighting the criminal elements of ChengDu armed with a slight razor rash and a telescopic hairpiece.

Strangely I have become so accustomed to people staring at me out here that I didnt really notice any difference in peoples shocked glances and you never know, next time I come out here the look may have caught on.