Today I spent the morning with some of the most adorable creatures in China at the Woolong Nature Reserve in Chengdu. This was the biggest reason I wanted to come to Chengdu as I had seen pictures in a National Geophraphic and couldn't resist those sad Panda eyes for too long. Yes, they are PANDAS!
We left bright and early to get there for feeding time. I guess if you wait until after lunch you are there for panda naptime which to me sounds a bit boring.
The tour lasted about three hours and we got incredibly close to some of the bears, much closer than any zoo in America. We started with adults and continued through the park seeing younger and younger bears. When we got to the nursery we saw a two babies who had been born just a few months ago. They were adorable climbing around each other and playing with their toys.
At the end of the tour we watched a panda mating video and saw just what it takes to fight natural selection. Because these bears lack the stamina most panda babies are made using artificial insimination. They say their diet is probably to blame for that lack of stamina and so you wonder if an animal can't get up enough energy to mate is it supposed to still be around???
We also witnessed a panda giving birth for the first time. It was crazy. This tiny rat pops out of this huge panda and the poor bear is so freaked out that she swats and hits the baby around the pen until one of the doctors run in there and grab it. I guess maternal insticts kick in eventually and the bear is much nuturing the following times but, the first attempt was quite violent. I guess I would be freaked out too if I dropped a baby one day and didn't know I was pregnant. Poor mama bear.
The first stop was hanging out with the "older" pnadas. After years of people gawking over me as I munched my breakfast I too would adopt this position when they came around....
the rest of the pandas we saw were of the littler variety. I seriously took over 250 pictures, all on flickr if you are really that curious. But here are the best ones in my opinion.
After the Pandas I boarded my first and hopefully last Chinese train....
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