Featured Categories

Breeding Centre pt.1 @ Panda Valley, May 2024

The Breeding Centre is the first panda yards you come across in Panda Valley and it looks to be perhaps the latest built because it has quite a different design to the other 3 houses here. I saw a total of 6 pandas living here, but there were also off-show areas inside so there may have been another panda or two also here. When you first come up to the area from the front of the park there is immediately one outdoor yard which has almost a circular design with viewing a lot of the way around. Then you head to the left and through a covered walkway viewing 2 indoor areas – one always had curtains drawn around it when I visited, but the second was very large with a climbing structure in the middle and roof windows to keep it bright – I saw pandas in here later in the day on my first visit. You then take the stairs or a lift/elevator up one floor and from there you can view 3 outdoor yards which have multiple viewing options. The first one you come to is the largest, then the middle one is long and thin, then the final one is slightly larger and this one is like a half circle that you can view on the rounded edge – when you walk around this, you then next come to long thin yard again from the other side, and finally again the largest yard from the other side. I really liked the design here with the viewing options depending on where the pandas were within their yards. Whilst this is called the Breeding Centre, I didn’t see any babies or kindergarten-aged pandas here. Maybe I was just here at the wrong time, or maybe they don’t have mums with babies/a nursery-style set up any more, I’m not sure. First I will share about two of the solo pandas living in this area of Panda Valley:

Continue Reading “Breeding Centre pt.1 @ Panda Valley, May 2024”

Introduction to Panda Valley and the ‘free-roaming’ Red Pandas

On both my second and fourth mornings of my time in Dujiangyan 都江堰 I headed out to the Chengdu Field Research Center for Giant Pandas, or more commonly known, Panda Valley 熊猫谷. I had only planned to have one visit here, but after looking through some of my pictures and having only seen a small glimpse at a few ‘big-name’ pandas, I decided to use my extra time for a second visit!

Continue Reading “Introduction to Panda Valley and the ‘free-roaming’ Red Pandas”

Magical Christmas time at Disneyland Paris (November 2022)

After my first Disney park experience in Shanghai I knew I wanted to visit other parks around the world – unfortunately covid hit and put a halt on those plans, but finally in 2022 I finally booked a trip, my first time in Disneyland Paris! I did plan to travel alone, but eventually persuaded my sister to come with me on my birthday trip. My birthday is at the end of November and that works out perfectly to see the park festive with Christmas decorations (Christmas is also my favourite time of year). We booked this in April of 2022 and stayed for 2-nights with 3-days in the parks. It was around £450 for the two of us for the room on site and park tickets and we were pretty happy with that – we did book before they had actually announced the festive celebration dates, so it may have increased in price after this. Disneyland Paris has 2 parks, so I felt like this was a good step for me before making the trip to Disney World with the 4 parks (trip also now booked with my sister after she really enjoyed Paris!) – so we had a lot to squeeze into our time!

Continue Reading “Magical Christmas time at Disneyland Paris (November 2022)”

Amsterdam strolls, June 2023

Amsterdam is one of my favourite cities, I’ve been several times and was happy to go back even just for an afternoon on my way home from Madrid last year. I had a 9-hour layover in Amsterdam which was a perfect amount of time – the plane landed timely and I was off super quick (because within Schengen zone, no passport control needed) and on a train into the city in no time. En route I bought my ticket for ARTIS, and then had plenty of time for a leisurely stroll through the city to get there. After visiting the zoo I then strolled back along the canals in the beautiful Summer weather to head back to the airport. A perfect way to spend an afternoon!

Continue Reading “Amsterdam strolls, June 2023”

Madrid strolls, June 2023

When planning my trip to see the giant pandas at Madrid Zoo I knew I wanted to have 2 full days in the city – this was a bit of an insurance policy incase I didn’t get to see the pandas on the first day for some reason, but I was lucky and my day at the zoo worked out perfectly. So I had the evening after arriving from a long day of travel, the morning and evening after visiting the zoo because of the later opening time, and then another whole day to fill – luckily there is plenty to see in Madrid!

Continue Reading “Madrid strolls, June 2023”