On the second day of my visit, in the yard next door to cub kindergarten at the Moonlight Nursery, I saw Zhi Zhi and her 2024-born twins, who are a female Zhi Hua 芝婳 and a male Zhi Shu 芝书 – although technically I didn’t actually see Zhi Zhi, and only saw the twins! The twins were super cute and very happy to entertain the large crowd – one of them was sitting up in a fork between tree branches, the other was on the wooden platform just below their sibling. Both seemed super chilled and happy to sit out there, and were probably happy with their independence from mum!

I saw Ya Yun 雅韵 and her 2024-born cub together in the Moonlight Nursery on the first day of my visit. They were living next door to the cub kindergarten. Her cub has now been announced as a male called Zhi Lu 徵路. I didn’t end up seeing a lot of Ya Yun herself, she was quite awkwardly tucked in the bushes eating her bamboo for most of the time, so I only could see around half of her body (mostly paws!). She did get up to give some attention to Zhi Lu at one point, but he was mostly allowed his independence to roam around the yard by himself, super cute^

Ya Yun was born in 2016, making her 8.5 years old. Given that my first visit to Chengdu Panda Base was in November 2016, and her sign says that as a cub she liked to chase her keepers – there’s a very strong chance that I saw her as a cub because I saw plenty of cubs chasing keepers on my visit!

A definite highlight of my visit (and I think of the few thousand people who also passed by that day) to the Chengdu Panda Base was being at the Moonlight Nursery and seeing cubs all playing and interacting together! It’s been so long since I’ve seen this, since 2019! When I visited in 2023 it was September and both too hot and the cubs were too young to be out together yet, and when I visited in 2024 it was May, so also very hot but there were no group houses for the cubs then. I did see a pair of cubs in the Star Nursery, but they were inside and quite far away so it definitely wasn’t the same experience.

It was serious panda cub craziness at this area, there must have been a good several hundred people here at any one time trying to catch a glimpse of the cuteness that is baby pandas playing together^ The path isn’t the widest, but there is a ledge at the back which you can stand on and the security guards don’t stop you from doing that, so it’s a good option, and actually I found viewing not too bad despite all the people. I was still able to get in and get plenty of pictures on both days. I did only visit in the mornings, between 10AM and 12PM and this was a pretty good time for activity, although I suspect was also a peak-viewing time as well. The miniapp for the base in WeChat does have a ‘busy-ness’ indicator on it at each panda house, to be honest I didn’t really use this, but it might help if you want to avoid crowds if possible.

On both days there were four 2024-born cubs out – because I saw different mothers with cubs in the next yard over on both the days, I suspect I didn’t see all four of the same cubs and that they are rotated round depending on who else is out. I also saw a few of the mothers living separately but also in the Moonlight Nursery, so they will likely be the mothers of the cubs that I saw.

Anyway, all the cubs were super cute and played both individually and together, and I saw one go down the slide, so life might be complete now XD On the first day of my visit one of the cubs spent the whole time up a tree that looked very thin with branches not made to hold a growing cub, several times it looked like it was going to fall out and the whole crowd was gasping then cheering when it managed to get back onto a more stable branch. The second day of my visit, I think the tree looked like they had taken a number of branches off, so I guess it was looking too dangerous/tempting for a cub^ So, onto the pictures!

Next up, living in the No2 House is Yuan Run 园润 and her 2023-born twins, who at the time of my visit weren’t yet named but have now been announced as male Run Ze 润泽 and female Run Yang 润洋. The twins were born on the 25th of August 2023 and are her 3rd and 4th cubs. I don’t think I’ve seen Yuan Run previously, last year she was likely living in on of the nursery houses with the cubs nearby, but it was very hot when I visited so many of the pandas were inside.

The final pandas to share about from the No1 House – and they were my first youngsters of Chengdu Panda Base on this visit, it’s Xiao Ya Tou 小丫头 and her 2023-born twins! Since my visit the cubs have now been announced as named CC and 99 … not sure how much I get that, but I guess there’s good reasoning behind it! When I was there there was only a sign for Xiao Ya Tou, you wouldn’t know there were her cubs in with her unless you saw them – and it’s a big yard with lots of plant coverage so they could easily hide away out of sight. Now, however, there is new signage so visitors know there are 3 pandas living there.