While at our Rugby Tour in Chengdu we were a hop skip and a jump away from THE World Famous Chengdu Panda Base. They have 83 Pandas on site and many different little viewing sites/centers. You have to get there nice and early because apparently Panda's are lazy. They get up for their feeding in the morning and then spend the rest of the day not doing much of anything. So after a night of Ruby Celebrations we dragged our tired bodies/minds/souls on to the hostel's bus and took a ride of death on said bus which apparently had lost any concept of shocks long time ago.
The first center we got to vista was the three year old panda enclosure. They had four little panda's. One who was late to arrive to breakfast and 3 that had plopped themselves in a line and had no plans of moving. One thing that we were all worried about coming into this was the quality of life for said pandas. China is well known for having lots of "sad zoos" but I can honestly say this was a very happy place. The enclosures were large with lots of foliage and had intreating things for panda's to climb. The panda's themselves were all bright eyed and bushy tailed (as a panda should have been.)
After oooo-ing/aaaah-ing and the overwhelming cuteness we headed on the red panda enclosure. Now red pandas are about the size of a raccoon and look like the missing pokemon character. They are far more active then regular panda's but have this one off character trait. The rub their "butt" on everything. They were like little territory marking machines.dragging their hind quarters against anything that stuck out of the ground. They also must be much better at breeding then their giant cousins because there were twenty or so in the enclosures.
Then we marched on to the nursery. This had a central building, surrounded by 6 or 7 different enclosures. In the first was 6 or 7 one year old pandas. And we must have missed feeding time because they had all assumed the position in the the tree. The position apparently is called "panda carcass" where it has just barely enough energy to fling its adorable panda body over a branch and the immediately fall asleep. Lazy panda. There was also a mommy/baby pair. Baby was full of vim and vigor, Mommy wanted to nap, hilarity inside. Including a full on tumble down the embankment surrounding the center. But don't worry folks, he was OK.
It was around this time that our guide in broken English asked us if we wanted to hold the baby panda. I had come mentally prepared to say no to this. First and foremost, it cost 1000RMB. I'm not going to convert that into USD for you because it is shamefully expensive. Secondly, it's not great for the baby panda to have so much human exposure. Third, I'm not THAT panda crazy. But, my friend Kate had decided she WAS going to hold the panda and wanted somebody to wait with her. So, we stood in line. And waited. And waited. And listened to the people around us talk about 'once in a life time' opportunity and how amazing it was going to be. I started to want to hold the panda....but I had outsmarted myself. I knew this might happen so I purposely did NOT bring enough money to hold the panda. And this is where it's great to have friends that are enablers, because Kate pulled out a wad of cash and told me to not worry about the difference.
You go into the nursery center a few people at a time. They make you suit up as if you are going into a delivery room. You stand around and watch as the other tourists hold the panda. One of my favorites was the 5 year old child who was A. unimpressed with being this close to a panda and B. the size of the panda. Then it was Kate's turn. And then mine. One thing about holding a panda is it does something to your brain- it turns it into some sort of goo. And all you really can think is "OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG I'M HOLDING A PANDA OMG OMG OMG OMG!" When they placed him on my lap he slipped out of the trainers hands and he landed with the most adorable panda groan. To keep him happy they feed him one tiny stick of bamboo at a time and as he finished each stick he would stick his little paw out for the next. He was a heavy little sucker- somewhere around 60-70lbs I'd guess. His hair is very corse- which surprised me. He didn't mind me petting him or squeezing him- as long as the bamboo kept coming.
After the baby panda experience Kate and I were on panda-cloud-nine. You probably could have hit me in the face with a 2 x 4 and I would have smiled at you and kept walking.
We finished out our day with an educational panda video produced by the center. We learned a few important facts: 1. Panda's get off easy when it comes to birth. The baby when born is 1/1000th of the Mother's size. 2. Panda Mom's aren't really great Mom's- with lots of videos of them batting the newly born babies around in a confused state. 3. A few Panda Mom's are great and very human like, rocking and holding their baby just like a human Mommy would. 4. Panda's aren't great at a lot of things: Walking, Climbing, Mating, Motherhood 5. This panda center has a high success rate in retrieving panda semen because they use electric shock AND massage. I feel sorry for the scientist with THAT job.
