We got to the hotel in Chendu uneventfully. By time we went to bed, Hannah had a fever. She ended up sleeping with me, and Herb back with Ben. I gave Hannah an ibuprofen and she fell into a pretty good sleep. I got her up the next morning so we could get some breakfast. I asked her whether she felt well enough to go see the Pandas and unfortunately she could not. She cried but she just didn't have the energy - so Herb and Ben left and Hannah and I went back to the room - Hannah went right to bed and I started catching up blogging. Herb and Ben got back around 1:00 and since I did not go -- I am having Herb write a little bit about their adventure.
Ben and I (Herb) took the bus with the group out to the Chengdu Panda reserve. There are about 1700 giant pandas in the world right now (up from about 1000 just 10 years ago). 80 of them are at this place. It's pretty amazing. The facilities are nicer than just about any zoo I've been to, and the landscaping and grounds are gorgeous. You see about 10-12 pandas (they rotate them all the time, so not all 80 are on display). Once a panda gets to be 4 years old or so, they become very territorial, so each panda gets its own enclosure. Only the young pandas (2-3 years old) are kept in groups. They also have red pandas (sort of like red raccoons), peacocks, black swans, etc. here. The pandas were more active than I would have guessed - so going early in the morning was best.
The highlight was getting to hold a baby panda. For 1000 yuan (about $150) you get to put on on plastic booties, gloves and coat (sort of like surgical scrubs) and have a 10 month old panda sit in your lap. Ben got to do it - he thought it was pretty cool. They had a couple of small gift shops here, but nothing like the cheap shopping overload that you typically run into at tourist sites in China. They had a large man-made lake stocked with fat koi that you could feed. These fish would push each other out of the water going for that fish kibble.
Ok, that was Ben and Herb's experience - I will try to catch up more tomorrow night. We are actually in Changsha tonight - tomorrow we go visit Hannah's orphanage - but I will have to get caught up with alot else before I share that so hopefully tomorrow I can post quite a bit more!
Is that a real panda Ben is holding? Awesome.
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