Beastie

Giant pandas and dirty, dirty monkeys

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April 17th 2009
Great. Now I want a panda. Sigh. We went to the Panda Breeding and Research Centre in Chengdu. They have a great set-up where you can actually get quite close to the pandas; often they are just a few feet away. The enclosures are surrounded only by a low fence and a small dry moat, which may be more to keep us away from them because the pandas actually hang out in the moats just for kicks. ... read more

Asia » China » Sichuan » Chengdu

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For centuries China stood as a leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. A... ... read more