Moving from the No1 Villa to the No2 Villa, I didn’t see any pandas outside in this house when I went, but luckily indoor viewing was open to see 4 of the 2022-born cubs who are living together – Ai Si 艾斯 and Ai Lun 艾琳, who are twins of Ai Li, 艾莉 and Chao Chao 吵吵 and Nao Nao 闹闹, who are twins of Er Qiao 二巧. These four were almost 2 years old when I saw them, honestly such a cute age to see pandas because they’re so playful and fun and have great interactions with each other. I went in and saw these guys on both days and at different times, each visit there were always one or two sleeping and the others were eating or interacting with each other. They have a good selection of climbing frames for climbing and sleeping on and they really were making good use of them all. The bamboo shoots were mostly done by the time of my visits, that would have been very cute to see as no doubt they would have all been tussling for the best ones! They were a very popular quartet and there was always a crowd viewing them – the indoor viewing is a bit tricky because the glass is quite reflective, I found it tricky to get the optimal spot where there was no reflection but also good for angles of the pandas.

Online it says that Ai Si is becoming a bit of a star at the base, there’s lots of baby pictures of him online and I have to say he looks extra cute^ I also read that Nao Nao has quite a distinctive look, with tear-drop eye patches that are wider at the top and narrow at the bottom, and her nose is also flatter than typical – unfortunately I didn’t get a clear picture of all 4 cubs’ faces so I can’t really tell which panda is which, but perhaps an expert panda identifier can point this out! Perhaps the panda alone in the below pictures looks like it has a slightly flatter nose, so perhaps this is Nao Nao?!