I decided that the last place in China that I wanted to visit was Chengdu. In other words I wanted to see the pandas in all of their glory. As usual I booked a trip with the Chinese Culture Center here and Beijing and as usual they did an amazing job.
Chengdu is in the Sichuan Province that experienced the devastating earthquake almost four years ago that killed over 85,000 people and from the information available four pandas. It is not a manufacturing area but a more agricultural province and has not experienced a lot of the problems other parts of China have with industry and pollution. I learned that the area around Chengdu is known for tea and that drives much of the social time.
We visited the Panda Base outside of Chengdu and arrived early enough that we were able to see a lot of pandas before the huge crowds arrived. There were no baby pandas in the incubators but there were a lot of little ones, ages 3 – 12 months, in the Kindergarten area. They are quite active as pandas are dawn and dusk animals and it was not hot yet. How adorable were they….
Life With Heather Laura 