Court and I had an early rising/check out on Sunday morning to see the pandas at the Panda Breeding Center just outside of Chengdu and it was completely worth it. There were SO many pandas! It should be considering it's a breeding center, but it was such a difference from the two adult pandas at the National Zoo.
Early morning is the best time to see these guys because it is the coolest time of the day so they are more active and tend to feed at this hour. The first panda we saw was the happiest adult panda I have ever seen. He was chomping away on bamboo and alternated between sitting up and laying down (they like to lay on their backs and pull it down to them to munch on).
Aside from the adult pandas, they had a TON of one year olds and they were adorable. I've never seen pandas this young and there were at least 8 of them. The majority of them were active and rough-housing together. They were all very human-like in a lot of their expressions and movements. My favorite little guy was sitting in the pool like a human would sit in the jacuzzi, splashing his legs and kind of leaning back...
After the pandas, we got to the train station and boarded a train to Chongqing to meet our cruise. Once we got to Chongqing had a bit of adventure trying to find our cruise ship. We were told to call the cruise boat to see what dock it was at (since where they dock depends on the water levels and weather conditions...who knows, it's China). Since we are not traveling with a cell phone, I had come up with a plan for communication that resembled pictionary. I was going to point to "Yangtze River" in Chinese in our guidebook, then to a picture of a boat I drew, then to the ship's cell phone number.
Well this definitely did not work because when we got in our cab we learned our cabdriver did not have his reading glasses OR a cell phone. He conferred with a few guys who read the characters for "Yangtze River" and made a really good guess. We arrived where we needed to be and even though there is not really tipping in China, I tipped him and we were all happy. Our cruise left that (Sunday) evening and I am currently writing a belated update from the boat...I'll post a cruise update in a few...
Early morning is the best time to see these guys because it is the coolest time of the day so they are more active and tend to feed at this hour. The first panda we saw was the happiest adult panda I have ever seen. He was chomping away on bamboo and alternated between sitting up and laying down (they like to lay on their backs and pull it down to them to munch on).
Aside from the adult pandas, they had a TON of one year olds and they were adorable. I've never seen pandas this young and there were at least 8 of them. The majority of them were active and rough-housing together. They were all very human-like in a lot of their expressions and movements. My favorite little guy was sitting in the pool like a human would sit in the jacuzzi, splashing his legs and kind of leaning back...
After the pandas, we got to the train station and boarded a train to Chongqing to meet our cruise. Once we got to Chongqing had a bit of adventure trying to find our cruise ship. We were told to call the cruise boat to see what dock it was at (since where they dock depends on the water levels and weather conditions...who knows, it's China). Since we are not traveling with a cell phone, I had come up with a plan for communication that resembled pictionary. I was going to point to "Yangtze River" in Chinese in our guidebook, then to a picture of a boat I drew, then to the ship's cell phone number.
Well this definitely did not work because when we got in our cab we learned our cabdriver did not have his reading glasses OR a cell phone. He conferred with a few guys who read the characters for "Yangtze River" and made a really good guess. We arrived where we needed to be and even though there is not really tipping in China, I tipped him and we were all happy. Our cruise left that (Sunday) evening and I am currently writing a belated update from the boat...I'll post a cruise update in a few...
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