Pandas!

The Cheng Du Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is located about a half hour by taxi out of the city.

It's a very attractive panda park which welcomes visitors daily.

When southwestern China, specifically the area of Qingcheng Mountain, was devastated by an earthquake in May 2008, pandas in that area were taken to the Cheng Du Research Base to survive. They joined the other panda residents there.

We arrived at the panda park around 9:30 a.m. We'd visited this park in 2005 and 2006, so we felt we knew where to go to find pandas immediately. Wrong! The park has been redesigned in many areas, so it took us awhile to find our first pandas. Finally we came to one fenced-in area where a worker was carrying in bundles of bamboo. We knew this was a good sign. He spotted us, motioned for us to wait right there, went inside, released the door to the panda's living quarters, and out dashed an adult panda. He made a beeline for the bamboo, found a comfortable tree to lean against, and devoured his breakfast in no time flat.

We watched him awhile, then decided to seek out more pandas. This one sitting on the edge of the rock wall seemed to know he had an audience. He was more than happy to give us a good
view of him as he sat munching on his bamboo.

It's best to visit the panda park in the morning, because that's feeding time. In the afternoon the pandas like to sleep, probably because their bellies are stuffed, much like us on Thanksgiving afternoon.

These two "sub-adults" had fun tumbling around. Pandas are playful animals, and the young ones especially like to play.

This panda is all tuckered out. We got a chuckle out of his slumping over the rail as he slept. He looks as if he had been out partying all night, doesn't he?

That's another panda's leg hanging down in the upper right corner. He'd been out partying with the other guy.

When I was at the park in 2005, I paid $50 to have my photo taken with a panda cub. He sat beside me, munching on a treat of some kind, and wasn't the least bit interested in me. When my sister and brother-in-law visited us in Chengdu later that year, the price for the photo had gone up to $100. Tan mentioned to us a couple of weeks ago that the charge, he has heard, is now much higher. I'm afraid the park won't get many customers for the photo shoot if they keep raising the price.

Our visit to the park was ending just as a large group of excited 4-5 year olds arrived. It must've been field trip day for them. Their teachers frantically tried to hush them, because visitors are asked to keep quiet in the park, but the children were so excited and loud that they couldn't hear their chaperones speaking to them.

It was fun to get back for a visit with the pandas. We'll never know if those excited little children ever quieted down or not. They were as cute as the pandas.