P
andas epitomize cuteness. I don't know of anyone who will argue with that statement :-) The sight of these fuzzy, black and white, roly-poly four legged creatures will instantly melt my heart. We're lucky that we have three pandas at the National Zoo in Washington, DC but of course, I'm in China, homeland of the panda so I must see one before I leave. I found out that they have a few juveniles at the Beijing Zoo so I arranged with one of my tour guides to make a quick pit stop at the zoo on the way to the Summer Palace. Yes, I bought a ticket to go to the zoo to just see the pandas :-)
The Beijing Zoo has two panda houses. One was built to commemorate the 1990 Asian Games which Beijing hosted. The other was built to commemorate the 2008 Olympics which of course, were held in Beijing.
The Asian Games house held two adult pandas. They were cute but eh....seen these many a time.
The Olympics house held 6 juvenile pandas. Oh my God....they were s-o-o-o so, cute! It was early morning so they were feeling, lolling in and around huge piles of freah bammboo.
There was one who really wanted to play and s/he was trying to provoke another in to action but no luck. The pandas were so adorable! I really wanted one of them to turn around so I could get a full on photo of that masked face but no luck :-(
The zoo was not crowed the day I was there so I had the luxury of being able to watch the pandas for as long as I wanted to and so I took my time to oooh and ahh over their every move. Eventually, I did have to leave though but what a wonderful memory. Next time I come to China, I will have to plan a trip to panda preserve in Chengdu so I get to hold one in my lap....that would be another dream come true.
