Waking up before 8 o’clock today, we decided to go see the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, a.k.a the “Panda Park”. We originally planned to see it in our last week in China, but favorable weather persuaded us to go right away.

About 10 km from Chengdu downtown and on the Bus 87 route, the park is the largest in the world dedicated to pandas, and the top research and breeding center for giant panda breeding. The Panda Park also features a museum, tourist center, and a cinema.

The entrance to the Panda Park in Chengdu
The entrance to the Panda Park

Within the park are frequent shuttles that take you around the various sections of the research base. The bus going away from the entrance took us to the giant panda and panda birthing center.

First panda of the day
The first panda that we saw during our visit. He was chewing on a bunch of leaves, not bamboo!
Two pandas feeding on sticks of bamboo.
Two pandas feeding on sticks of bamboo.

This was also the first time we saw a significant number of English-speaking tourists in China. The particular group visiting the Panda Park on this day were from England and Australia.

A panda climbing the cage
Pandas can be quite acrobatic, or at least they try. This one is seen trying to climb the walls of the cage.
This red panda is seen munching on a pile of bamboo.
Couldn’t forget about the red pandas! They are more elusive than the giant pandas, however, which makes them hard to capture on camera. This fellow is seen munching on a pile of bamboo. His companions are playing in the trees.

Published by Geoffrey Liu

A software engineer by trade and a classical musician at heart. Currently a software engineer at Groupon getting into iOS mobile development. Recently graduated from the University of Washington, with a degree in Computer Science and a minor in Music. Web development has been my passion for many years. I am also greatly interested in UI/UX design, teaching, cooking, biking, and collecting posters.

3 thoughts on “China, Day 3: Pandas!

  1. These Panda’s look so cute and fat I was surprised to see the picture of the one panda hanging from the bars. Are they pretty agile when they get to moving around? Love the architecture of the Panda entrance.

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