We take a trip to Chengdu to see the pandas. Picture the San Diego Wild
Animal Park with only two exhibits. This was OK to visit, but probably
not worth the day and a half of travel that it took to get us there and
back.
It's a tough life for a panda. We even got there early in the morning
so we could watch the feeding, but they don't really put on a good show.
Doesn't this remind you of Gary Larson's "boneless chicken ranch"?
This one is very gracefully (not!) getting down from its habitat tree.
They don't move very fast, so there are not a lot of action shots. We
did get to see a one-day-old baby, and a pair of nine-day-old twins, but
there was no photography allowed there, because their eyes have not fully
developed and they can't risk people accidentally blinding them with camera
flashes.
A local spider.
The brown panda, or "lesser" panda. It's about the size and
look of a raccoon, and we couldn't get close enough to get a great shot.
A reminder from the keepers.
That night, we stayed in the Shangri-La Hotel, which was easily the best
hotel we stayed in. This turned out to be a problem, because then we had
to compare the ship accommodations against this hotel. Here we are in
the atrium listening to the two Cuban jazz singers.
