Onto the final section of the Ya’an Bifengxia Base, the Overseas Panda Paradise! This is the furthest area into the base – I’m quite proud of myself for walking the whole base and not taking the bus, I racked up the equivalent of 99 flights of stairs according to my phone on this day! Here there are 5 visible yards, and another couple that aren’t visible (but I did spy a panda in far up the hill and through the trees!) – in these 5 yards were a total 8 pandas, and I managed to see them all. Sadly however the only view I had of Dutch-born Fan Xing was of her bum way at the back of the yard … one day I’ll have a great time seeing her, it wasn’t this day!

The next area to share is the Leopard Mountain – this area has 5 yards, however I would say that generally 4 of them are trickier to see. 3 are set on a pretty steep mountain-side, and while there are a couple of viewing platforms, you are quite far from the pandas and still don’t get a great viewing angle. The other 2 have flatter viewing options but the yards are still hilly, so you can’t see a lot of them, and they are only viewed through glass windows – Xiang Xiang lives in one of these yards and I saw her last time, as is pretty standard there were a lot of Japanese fans there on this visit and I didn’t see her at all. But I did see pandas in all the other yards, albeit some from very far away:

The next mum with twins living in the Kindergarten area is Ran Ran 冉冉 and her male-female twins, who are now named Long Ye 龙野 (M) and Feng Ye 凤野 (F). The ‘Ye‘ in the cubs name means that the cubs’ father is a wild panda – meaning these two have important genetics to add to the captive pool. I saw this trio last year in this same yard and was so excited to see them still living there this year on my visit. I really like this yard for viewing because there are two different options so you do get all the angles, which was perfect and meant I got a lot of pictures! I got there pretty early in the morning and Ran Ran was out with one cub initially and they were both eating, not long after the second cub came outside and it was a constant rotation between the 3 on who was where and who was out and in. The cubs were quite independent and were happy to spend their day by themselves without relying on mum – they only really bothered her when they wanted the same cane of bamboo that she was already eating! I didn’t really see these guys sleeping much, it was always exploring or eating, and highlights included seeing one of the cubs super quickly scale a very tall tree in the yard, and then as soon as they were up they scooted right back down again, so cute! These cubs are particularly photogenic, I then all photos of them look good and I also got some really nice ones of Ran Ran on her own too, she is also very cute looking.

The first mother and cubs I saw in the Kindergarten were Wang Jia 汪佳 and her 2023-born female cubs, who have now been named Jia Yu 佳雨 and Jia Xue 佳雪. When I was there I was somehow thinking these were the pandas I had seen in this yard last year, but I actually saw these twins in Wolong and a different trio of pandas here. While I did see them sleeping at one point, this was a very active family and all three of them were loving the bamboo^ One of the cubs was most keen on eating while the other was a little more adventurous, walking around and climbing up on the rock structure – this is a really nice yard with different terrain options but these three stuck mostly on the flat area at the front viewing and the rocky structure that sits down there (of course, this is the section where the bamboo was placed at!). The cubs were super cute interacting together, there were some adorable little ‘fights’ for the final few bamboo shoots, but also lots of playing with mum Wang Jia as well.