We were up by 6:30 this morning, which was easier than you would think considering we were so excited to go see the pandas. We had a driver take us to the panda park that was about a 30-minute drive outside of the city. Once we got there we waited around pretty confused while our driver just stood around in the parking lot until another van arrived and we all went inside together with probably the most friendly tour guide ever. He hardly spoke any English but was so energetic and just happy to take us around the park. He was great and let us stop and take pictures whenever we wanted and did a great job of getting us around to all of the good parts of the park. Our first panda sitting was pretty exciting, especially because we didn’t realize how many more we were going to see.
After taking tons of pictures we moved on to a section with a little guy up in a tree and some giant pandas running around on the ground below him. There was one guy who was actually running laps and would just sprint until he got to the ditch, climb down, climb back up, and start over again. We watched him for a while in amazement of how active all of the pandas were compared to what we were expecting. After that section we stopped by where we were going to hold the baby pandas. We paid and reserved our spots and they told us to come back in about an hour and a half so we had some more time to look around before we had to be back. We took a little walk until we made it over to another part with just a group of pandas chilling and eating bamboo. It was interesting to see them interact and work together.
One of the pandas actually tried to help another and pull him out of the ditch, which was pretty cute. We got some good pictures with the group of pandas and then made our way over to the red pandas.
The red panda section was pretty cool because there were actually holes in the fences so the pandas would just come out on the paths right next to you. They were all so tiny and cute and basically looked like more friendly, red raccoons. After we were done with the red pandas we headed to over to one more area that had some funny pandas that were hanging upside down in trees and chasing each other around. After that it was about time to head back to the panda nursery to hold the baby.
We waited in line for a while until they eventually took the first 10 people into a room and gave us some background on pandas and what they are doing to help them. They told us about the pandas when they are born and gave us a fake replica to get an idea of the size and weight. Very often pandas have twins and in the wild the mom has to choose which baby she will keep and abandon the other because she can’t take care of both. Luckily in the reserve they can rescue the other baby and raise it, which is helping the population rise. There are currently about 1600 pandas between captivity and the wild and the numbers are growing. Another interesting fact they told us actually had to do with the panda poop. Since pandas basically just eat bamboo, their poop just looks like shredded up bamboo and doesn’t even smell. After we got the whole low down on the panda background we left the room and took a little walk over to wash some bamboo for the pandas. We basically just sprayed the bamboo with a high-powered hose and then headed back to the nursery to suit up. They gave us full-length robes and gloves and we all felt like we were about to go into surgery.
They then told us about the panda we were going to get to hold. Her name was Miao Miao and she is a 6-month old baby panda. We anxiously awaited the reveal of Miao Miao until finally a worker came out from the back grabbing the little panda by the underarms and walking her out to us. We were all in awe at how cute she was and just stared while the first few people go to hold her. They let everyone feed her apples, bamboo, and honey to keep her entertained. After a few people had gone, Jess jumped right in for it. She made sure to strike a few good poses for the camera and then just spent the rest of the time cuddling her. After not very long they made her hand Miao Miao off to Catriona and then Bryan. After Bryan got to hold her for a while we all jumped in for a group picture and then it was my turn.
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| Miao Miao and me! |
As soon as I got her in my arms I was in complete bliss. She was so cuddly and cute and I could not even contain how excited I was. I helped her eat some bamboo, made sure to strike the typical Asian pose with a peace sign, and squeezed her until they made me let go. After that it was time for all of us to wave goodbye to Miao Miao and head back into the waiting area.
They gave us all certificates of our donations, panda sweatshirts, and picture frames to put the pictures they were printing of us inside. They said it would take 20 minutes for the pictures to print so we looked at some pandas outside the entrance for a while and then after about 30 minutes we were curious where are pictures were. We noticed that pictures of the groups after us were printed but they had skipped us. We asked the lady at the desk and she told us that one of the printers had broken so they had to switch the pictures over and it would just be a little while. An hour later the pictures finally came out, but only Catriona and Jess’s were done. After not too much longer Bryan’s also came out and of course mine was still no where to be found. We waited around for another 30 minutes and since everyone was so annoyed I just took one for the team and took the empty picture frame and figured I could just print my own picture for the frame. I was pretty frustrated that I had just paid a ridiculous sum of money to hold a panda for a couple minutes and they couldn’t even print me my picture but they gave us and extra panda book as an apology, which was nice. By this point our tour guide had left and they just made our driver wait for us and he escorted us out of the park. Once we finally got back to the car we headed back to the hostel.
They were really nice and since we were coming back on Friday they let us store some stuff in their locker so we didn’t have to carry it all the way up the mountain. After we were all checked out we walked down the street to look for a good place to get some Sichuan food for lunch. We found a place with a picture menu so we jumped on it and luckily there was a server who spoke perfect English. He told us which dishes weren’t as spicy as the rest and we all ended up getting either chicken, pork, or eggplant and green beans. Everything was amazing but for only supposedly being a little bit spicy we were all pretty lit up. It all had so much flavor and was a pretty big change from what we are used to in Shanghai.
After we were all done eating we made sure to go grab some drinks to calm the spice and then walked to the bus station to catch the bus to Mt. Emei. We got tickets pretty easily and then just waited in line until we were on the next open bus. The bus ride was a couple hours and I got a pretty nice nap as usual. Once we got to the bus station we just got in a cab to our hostel and got checked in. The hostel definitely partook in some false advertising as they didn’t speak any English and they had an awesome Western menu but didn’t actually have any of the food on it. We all settled for their attempt at spaghetti for dinner since it was all they had and then everyone watched Kung Fu Panda, since that was only appropriate, and I studied some thermo. After that we all showered, swapped panda pictures, made plans for the morning, and had some pillow talk before we fell asleep.
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