Chengdu Day 2

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We checked out of our noisy hotel this morning - we hopped on the bus while our luggage was taken to the airport for us. Today's highlight: The Giant Panda Reserve! What an amazing place and well worth a visit. They try to replicate the natural habitat of the Panda's as much as possible while still giving the public a great view of these beautiful animals. Apparently it is extremely hard to find a panda in the wild as they have a brilliant sense of smell. National Geographic were determined to photograph panda's in the wild but after a week the only sign of a panda was some panda poo. Luckily the Panda's in the reserve weren't so shy. While most of the giant panda's are solitary animals and had their own enclosures, some of the juvenille ones were happy to be in the same enclosure. A lot like the koala in eating habits, they don't have much energy after eating for much else other than sleeping. The highlight - the four panda babies in the nursery - you weren't allowed to take any photographs and you could only look at them through glass but they were absolutely adorable. There are now 80 panda's in the reserve and their efforts are going a long way to ensure the population of these beautiful animals. We also checked out the red panda (a lot like the racoon but is called a panda because they eat bamboo - panda means bamboo eater). These are a lot more active and are extremely cheeky. They loved to run up to another red panda, pounce and then run off hoping that they would be chased. I am coming home with my very own panda - stuffed of course but I had to do my little bit to help the conservation effort.

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