We woke up before 0600 and took a bus, a subway, and a taxi to get to the giant pandas while they were still awake. We got to the panda base before 0830, and got to see them eating bamboo. We also beat most of the tourists by a slight margin, which meant we spent a little alone time with some of the giant pandas. After 1000, most of the adult pandas are asleep, and the more energetic cubs have a throng of tourists gawking at them. They don't get new baby pandas until later in the year, so the panda nurseries were empty.
The area was pretty spacious, with signs pointing you to the different enclosures of the animals. Once we were confident we'd seen all the giant pandas, and were annoyed by loud tour groups playing awful music to scare them away, we moved over to the red panda enclosures. These little pandas are more closely related to racoons, and they are much more active than the giant pandas. Some of them looked in bad shape, with missing tails or gnawed ears.
There was one enclosure of red pandas that you could walk through, and the red pandas had holes in the fences so they could walk along the trail with you if they chose. They are curious and walk right up to the tourists, who would then crowd around them until they got nervous and ducked back through their holes in the fence. One of the red pandas took a walk alongside Guy, they have a picture together, they are such good friends!
After seeing the red pandas and seeing the giant pandas sleeping, we went to the swan lake, where they have mostly black swans and morbidly overfed fish. There was supposed to be a restaurant there but they were closed and the cafe didn't have anything to eat. We ate snacks that we brought with us, messily, over the swan lake. Then we went to the panda cinema to see a film (in Chinese, then in English) about how they artificially breed giant pandas at the research base.
They have a selection of museums there, and we started at a research museum that explains (though mostly in Chinese) how they breed giant pandas and do genetic research on them. Another museum is more about the evolution and biology of the red panda and giant panda, which have seriously outlived the typical lifespan of a species. Above it they have a butterfly museum with many dried butterfly specimens, which was completely deserted.
We were hungry after spending over five hours in the park, so we tried to find the two buses back to town. It was a little bit of a challenge: Leia passed up the first bus because it was crowded, but used her elbows to reserve us seats in the next one that came. Then Leia had to figure out which bus took us from the zoo station to the North railway station, from which we could catch a subway. We took it until the Wenshu Monastery station and found something to eat nearby there.
The Wenshu monastery is an active Buddhist monastery with monks living in it: we even saw a few playing badminton on the grounds. Outside the temple proper are streets selling souvenirs, a vegetarian buffet, and a tea house. It was all too expensive and crowded for us to stay, even though Leia was craving a latte.
We tried to meet a woman who couldn't host us but still wanted to meet up. She was in an outlet mall near the South railway station on the opposite side of the city, but accessible by subway. She didn't give clear directions and the people on the street weren't very informative, so we spent a long time lost. Eventually we met her at the Starbucks with her husband and baby, and she interrogated us about Israel while Leia drank an underwhelming Starbucks latte. Her baby was tired and she suggested we go eat at Ikea. We gracefully declined and shopped in the outlet mall. I was looking for a rain cover for my backpack but none of them were big enough. I did buy a few pairs of underwear.
We texted our host on the way back inviting him out for hot pot for dinner to thank him for hosting us. You need to eat hot pot with a Chinese speaker, as you check boxes on the menu of the items you will want to throw in there, and there's some pretty exotic Chinese stuff. Sichuan hot pot is supposed to be very spicy, but it wasn't too bad and we also had a mild section. Along with goat and beef we had some bamboo (in honor of the pandas), whole small fish, and a brain - I think from a pig.
The area was pretty spacious, with signs pointing you to the different enclosures of the animals. Once we were confident we'd seen all the giant pandas, and were annoyed by loud tour groups playing awful music to scare them away, we moved over to the red panda enclosures. These little pandas are more closely related to racoons, and they are much more active than the giant pandas. Some of them looked in bad shape, with missing tails or gnawed ears.
There was one enclosure of red pandas that you could walk through, and the red pandas had holes in the fences so they could walk along the trail with you if they chose. They are curious and walk right up to the tourists, who would then crowd around them until they got nervous and ducked back through their holes in the fence. One of the red pandas took a walk alongside Guy, they have a picture together, they are such good friends!
After seeing the red pandas and seeing the giant pandas sleeping, we went to the swan lake, where they have mostly black swans and morbidly overfed fish. There was supposed to be a restaurant there but they were closed and the cafe didn't have anything to eat. We ate snacks that we brought with us, messily, over the swan lake. Then we went to the panda cinema to see a film (in Chinese, then in English) about how they artificially breed giant pandas at the research base.
They have a selection of museums there, and we started at a research museum that explains (though mostly in Chinese) how they breed giant pandas and do genetic research on them. Another museum is more about the evolution and biology of the red panda and giant panda, which have seriously outlived the typical lifespan of a species. Above it they have a butterfly museum with many dried butterfly specimens, which was completely deserted.
We were hungry after spending over five hours in the park, so we tried to find the two buses back to town. It was a little bit of a challenge: Leia passed up the first bus because it was crowded, but used her elbows to reserve us seats in the next one that came. Then Leia had to figure out which bus took us from the zoo station to the North railway station, from which we could catch a subway. We took it until the Wenshu Monastery station and found something to eat nearby there.
The Wenshu monastery is an active Buddhist monastery with monks living in it: we even saw a few playing badminton on the grounds. Outside the temple proper are streets selling souvenirs, a vegetarian buffet, and a tea house. It was all too expensive and crowded for us to stay, even though Leia was craving a latte.
We tried to meet a woman who couldn't host us but still wanted to meet up. She was in an outlet mall near the South railway station on the opposite side of the city, but accessible by subway. She didn't give clear directions and the people on the street weren't very informative, so we spent a long time lost. Eventually we met her at the Starbucks with her husband and baby, and she interrogated us about Israel while Leia drank an underwhelming Starbucks latte. Her baby was tired and she suggested we go eat at Ikea. We gracefully declined and shopped in the outlet mall. I was looking for a rain cover for my backpack but none of them were big enough. I did buy a few pairs of underwear.
We texted our host on the way back inviting him out for hot pot for dinner to thank him for hosting us. You need to eat hot pot with a Chinese speaker, as you check boxes on the menu of the items you will want to throw in there, and there's some pretty exotic Chinese stuff. Sichuan hot pot is supposed to be very spicy, but it wasn't too bad and we also had a mild section. Along with goat and beef we had some bamboo (in honor of the pandas), whole small fish, and a brain - I think from a pig.
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