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Kirsten

P A N D A S @ E V E R L A N D SOUTH KOREA, December 2025

I made it to South Korea! This is my first time time in South Korea seeing the panda family that live there in the Everland Resort – the Bao family^ On my visit to Shenshuping Base a few years ago I just missed seeing oldest daughter of the family Fu Bao, she had recently moved to China but wasn’t on show yet to the public, so she’s still to be seen, but now I have seen the parents, Ai Bao and Le Bao (who have been living in South Korea since March 2016!), and younger sisters, twins Rui Bao and Hui Bao =D

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Kirsten

First-timer TOKYO snapshots, November 2025

Only planned myself 48 hours in Tokyo for this first trip alongside Disney time – just enough to give me a little taster and tick off a few of the sites! Now when this 48 hours includes seeing pandas and sleeping, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else – Tokyo is huge and I definitely underestimated a little on how long it would take me to get to and from places. I already have a list for my next visit, and without there being pandas there now, perhaps that will be my furthest travel destination that doesn’t have pandas to see! Anyway, what I did squeeze in: Tokyo Skytree and top tourist spots in Ginza, Shibuya and Harajuku as well as strolling the streets of Ueno. What impressed me the most though were the beautiful Autumn colours, I really loved them in Toyko^

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Kirsten

Ueno Zoo, Japan November 2025

Of course with two days at Ueno Zoo, I also checked out the other animals to see there besides the pandas! It’s quite a large zoo with plenty to see split over two sections. While I did spend most of my time in the West Garden where the panda area was, on my first day I entered via the main gate so started my day in the East Garden and spent some time there on both days. Ueno Zoo was very affordable, entry was 600 yen for an adult ticket (approx. £3) and was open all day, so a great value for money day out – and the tickets have very nice pictures on them, would have loved a panda but was very happy to get an Aye Aye ticket along with seeing Aye Aye’s for the first time!

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Kirsten

First visit to the last PANDAS @ UENO ZOO JAPAN, November 2025

I finally made it to Japan!!! I’ve been planning a Japan trip for years, however I didn’t quite intend for it to only include 2 pandas – I booked to go to Adventure World as well, and just a few weeks later, the announcement was made that the Adventure World pandas would return to China in July. So I was too late for them, but I wasn’t too late to see the final pandas in Japan at Ueno Zoo – Japanese-born twins Xiao Xiao 晓晓 and Lei Lei 蕾蕾!

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Kirsten

Snapshots from St Louis Zoo, Missouri November 2025

After a day visiting Omaha, I hopped on a quick flight to Saint Louis, Missouri ready for a week of conferencing – that was actually in the Saint Louis Zoo! The zoo is kitted out to host a range of events, including conferences so in all the breaks I headed out to explore what I could, and on our welcome day we even got a tour from some of the great volunteers and got to do some special activities^

Highlights definitely include seeing the cheetah cubs, feeding multiple giraffes and seeing a baby elephant who shares my birthday =D

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