My list is long - very long. So long, I figured that I needed to live to 150 to complete the list. The trouble is, I keep adding to the list - faster than I can tick items off. A few years I drew a short straw and was diagnosed with prostate cancer, now treated and all behind me - but it did make me stop and think about that bucket list. Can I really complete it and do I really still want to do all that? I looked thoroughly at that bucket list and came to the conclusion that, allowing for slowing down (something I hate to admit is gradually happening) and a few other distractions, I could maybe complete that list by the time I'm 145 years old. I've cut 5 years off the original estimate!!
This all brings me back to the present. Earlier this year I had the opportunity to accept a place on a tour to China and Tibet with the New Zealand China Friendship Society. A photographic tour and I knew many of the other participants planning to go. The price was good so it was a no-brainer. I was going!
And so to attend to two items on my bucket list.
1. Since I was a teenager, I've wanted to see the Polata Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. Tibet is a country that has always fascinated me - for its culture, religion, monasteries, altitude, people - and of course its mountains. It is a country that has gone through a huge amount of angst since the 1950s.
2. I've also wanted to see the panda bears. Ideally I would like to see them in their natural habitat but that is virtually impossible so I was happy to see them in a sanctuary.
Maybe later I will talk about the rest of the China/Tibet journey, but for now share with me these two ticked items on my bucket list. Both hopefully will be revisited with Chris at a later date - maybe enroute to other bucket list items.
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| Breakfast at the Great Panda Centre near Chengdu |
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| Almost replete |
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| Polata Palace at dusk - Lhasa, Tibet |
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