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Kirsten

China Diaries: May 2024 #1 ~ arriving in Shanghai, let’s check out the Toy Story Hotel + Disney Town

Welcome to my China travels of May 2024! I’d been thinking about this trip since November 2023, to cut a long story short, myself and some colleagues thought there may have been a conference going to happen in May, so I planned a bit of a crazy trip to see pandas. By the start of April we determined the conference wasn’t going ahead and I’d really worked out the plan in my head, so decided to go ahead and book the trip anyway. This was my first time in China for only a holiday – the other 5 trips have all been for conferences and I’ve added on extra days for seeing other things, so this did feel like quite a different experience. So despite only booking 5-weeks out, and probably not getting the best price for the flights, I pretty much knew my complete plan, where I wanted to stay and what to do already. Nevertheless, I made a fully packed itinerary and it was exhausting but so exciting and completely worth it!

So lets get into Diary 1, my travel day(s) and sharing about the Toy Story Hotel and Disneytown at the Shanghai Disney Resort:

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Kirsten

I’ve seen all the pandas in Europe*, what next?!

When I made my visit to Madrid in June 2023, that checked off visiting all nine* of the panda zoos in Europe (*with the exception of Russia)! Of course, now all of that has changed – at the end of 2023 Edinburgh Zoo no longer has pandas (it was the end of the loan agreement, contrary to what many people were saying online, China were not recalling all the pandas, it was the end of loan agreements for several zoos), and in February 2024 Madrid sent their family of 5 back to China as well. At some point this year it also looks like Vienna will be sending their panda pair back too. Pairi Daiza will also be sending their 3 cubs (who are no longer cubs at all!) back this year too. However, already Madrid has a new young panda pair! And it’s been announced that there will be a new pair for Vienna too. Sooo … looks like more trips need to be planned^

After seeing all of the pandas in Europe, I ended up being in China in September 2023 and all my panda content from that trip has been posted over the last few weeks. But seeing the pandas in Edinburgh Zoo at the start of December, well that’s now been the longest gap I’ve had where I’ve not seen a panda … so what’s next?!?!

Starting next week I will be sharing about my incredible trip to see pandas in China in May 2024 – so much content to share, but before diving into the pandas (and there will be a lot with all of the recently returned pandas to see) I’ll start with travelling and staying at Shanghai Disneyland for a magical third trip^

Kirsten

Zoo Madrid, Spain 2023

Finally getting around to posting about the rest of Zoo Madrid beyond the giant pandas! Because I was primarily there for the giant pandas and was lucky enough to see them all outside for a significant part of the day, I didn’t spend a huge amount of time looking at the rest of the animals. But there were some trainings that could be watched that I really wanted to check out, and I think I did end up seeing most of what else the zoo has to offer.

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Kirsten

P A N D A S @ Beijing Zoo (2017,2018,2023)

Finally posting about the pandas at Beijing Zoo! I have visited three times and of course always have spent plenty of time panda-viewng^ My first visit was on my first trip to Beijing in November 2017, we went on a 3-day organised tour, then had a final day for anything else before travelling home – of course I spent that at the zoo seeing the pandas. Then I was back in Beijing for a few days in my November 2018 trip and Beijing Zoo was the first thing I did. Then in September 2023 I was travelling with a friend who had somehow never seen pandas before, of course, we also went straight to the zoo on our first day.

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