It goes without saying that we primarily visited the City of Chengdu in China to go and see the Giant Panda’s at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. Our tour guide Amanda had us up early so we could avoid as much traffic and crowds as possible. The Base is a huge area: a bamboo wonderland with a variety of enclosures for pandas. As we were visiting in Spring, we would encounter the big pandas as well as little pandas that were born last summer, which is a very cute stage as they are still relatively small but now super fluffy and very active!
FUN FACT – There are over a thousand types of bamboo but Panda’s only eat 10 kinds.
FUN FACT – Pandas are called “Xióngmāo” which means bear cat. Naturally Bailey was thrilled!
We loved the Giant Pandas, but I have to say I have a very big soft spot for the Red Panda. The ones we saw looked so cuddly and were busy “finding” their food (they love pumpkin!) in the cut-out feeders that were a bit like bird feeders. As we already have cute Giant Panda soft toys, we all decided to get Red Panda ones – and they ended up being great pillows on the plane!
In the past, at the Centre you were able to hug a panda, but naturally now they are more wary of disease so it is not possible. What is possible though is you can sign up to be a Panda Keeper Volunteer for a Day and then you can get to touch and care for them. But you have to be older than 12 years of age; so you can be sure that the girls and are already planning our return trip to Chengdu!
Chatting and learning lots of fun facts with the Volunteers.
Bailey holding a model of a baby panda!
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