Who doesn't love Pandas?

When I was a little boy, my absolute favourite activity was visiting Edinburgh Zoo. I loved the tigers, penguins, and so on. It was a dream place, but it was missing something: a panda bear. When I went on my 1st school trip (age 11) to London, I hoped I would see one there, but the teachers didn't take us to the zoo, where there was at least 1 panda.

And so, through life, by mistake or design, I never got to see a real live panda.

I was even here in Chengdu for a couple of days in 2007, but it failed to register then that I was in the middle of panda lover heaven, and so I left not even knowing what I had missed.

Not this time!

For the ill informed, the airport now has not too subtle hints of the big attractions here . (Statues, loads of ads, and a huge variety of souvenirs). The kids are photographed at the welcome sculpture.

Today, we went to see the animals themselves!

Not the best time of year we heard, as they prefer temperatures less than 25C, (it's 35+), "so go early," which we duly did. Up at 6 am.

We weren't the only ones. As is custom in China, even before opening at 7am, there is a football crowd like queue. The only surprise is that it's 99% adults. (School day ;) ). Otherwise, who knows how big the queue would be?

Luckily, the park is very large. We end up walking 12km. And that means after a while the crowds disperse quite a lot

The place is ostensibly for breeding, and true enough, we see many less than 1 year old, though not any cute tiny ones.

I didn't count, but maybe we saw 25-30 pandas. Strangely, I wasn't that happy or excited . I wasn't fulfilled . I'm not sure why, and Flo was also underwhelmed. Maybe we simply recognise the conflicting priorities of breeding and having the animals in captivity.

Needless to say, all the kids, unburdened by such thoughts, had a wonderful and very memorable experienceBaca lagi