Ann and Mike (it's hard to pick good pronouns when we're both writing) didn't make it to the panda sanctuary until a little before two in the afternoon. We had learned from the guidebook that pandas get fed at 10am and don't do much after but sleep - but we operate in reverse! We sleep until ten, then eat and begin to do things. The bus ride was long (and would have been logistically quite challenging had google maps not come to the rescue with a fully functional bus-routes search for Chengdu) and we figured it would be like the zoo: maybe some pandas, probably asleep. But not only were the pandas awake, they were romping about! Okay, "panda romping" consists mostly of laying on the ground eating, or sitting around scratching (or staring dejectedly over the railing? I don't know what that was about.) but even this leaves us totally entranced. You see the videos: pandas are amazing.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding ("Welcome to Chengdu, the home town of pandas. The Charm of China, the Cradle of Pandas." (But it's not creepy! It's great!)) is split up into various panda enclosures by panda age (with an additional area for Red Pandas, which are only distantly related to Giant Pandas). The first place we visited was the adolescent panda enclosure, and they were mostly laying around eating. Second was adult pandas. It was impressive how close we could get to them - there's just a low wall below which the pandas are hanging out, snacking, pooping, etc. And they're totally indifferent to the gawking tourists (even the one woman who repeatedly shrieked and clapped at them. I winced. Pandas didn't even notice).
After the adults we trooped up a long series of stone steps to the Panda Nursery. There were five baby pandas, eight to twelve weeks old, and impossibly cute (No pictures allowed! Of the cutest thing in the whole sanctuary!) They were already pretty big (20-30lbs?), fuzzy black and white, laying about yawning, stretching, lazily snoozing up against each other. Except for the one whose turn it was to be 'pooped' by the zoo keeper, who diligently rubbed its stomach with a washcloth while holding it over a garbage bin. Cute!
Ann's favorites, though, were the one year olds. We visited their spot last, and the four that we saw were tumbling around, wrestling with each other, climbing all over their wood structures, and getting bathed and fed bamboo shoots by a keeper. They were completely uncoordinated, frequently falling off their platform, and even sliding down the little gully at the edge of their enclosure to the foot of the wall we all watched from. Clumsy pandas!
Overall, it was a great day.
Ann and Mike
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