Of course I couldn’t go all the way to Washington DC and only see the pandas – today I am sharing my city guide and what we got up to on our trip in September 2018. It was very hot on our first day, however that day then ended with a crazy rainstorm and we got very soaked! After that it was a bit of a damp and cloudy trip, however that didn’t spoil our time, just made for some dullness in the pictures but hopefully they still show the city and its attractions well.
I can’t believe it’s been 3 months since my first re-opened visit to Edinburgh Zoo! There are still limited numbers of guests allowed in the zoo, however it is more now than in July when I made my last visit. This time I had a week off from work so made a mid-week visit, I wanted to avoid the weekends as there would be a lot of school-age kids about, there are also quite a lot of tourists around the city too. I wasn’t sure I would have enough photos to share from another trip so soon, however we really picked a great day to visit – it was sunny and crisp, and it seemed like all of the animals decided to be active, well, apart from the pandas! But you can’t win on every visit, and the other animals really did make up for less panda activity. The one-way system is still in place, and is the same as it was back in July, however now a few of the indoor viewings are open, mainly the Budongo Trail and the koala habitat. We had to queue for the koalas, with only one group allowed in each of the viewing sections at a time. A staff member was manning this well, and we didn’t have to wait long but also found we had plenty of time to see the koalas. Masks are also required in indoor areas, e.g. the entrance, gift shop and indoor viewings. We weren’t sure if this included the cafe (take away only) or restaurant (sit in only, limited capacity), so we wore our masks in the restaurant until we were eating, and put them back on again to leave once we’d finished. And as per the last visit, there were hand sanitising stations around the zoo as well, and the recommendation to touch things as little as possible.
Following on from my post about seeing the pandas at Smithsonian National Zoo back in September 2018 I wanted to put together a post about everything else we saw on our two visits to the National Zoo. It’s a huge zoo and they have so many species to see and learn about, we really had a great time and really filled out two visits well with everything the zoo had to show! They have such a range of species from all of the large mammal favourites to many different reptile species in the specific Reptile House. This post covers all the areas at the zoo, but we didn’t quite see everything/get a picture of everything. The zoo is split into 3 main areas which are colour coded on the map, I thought this was quite useful and split the species quite nicely in the zoo, and so I’ve used the same areas to share about what we saw in this wonderful zoo.
When I started taking trips to visit pandas, going to the US never really crossed my mind as an option – and I was quite happy because we have plenty of pandas to see here in Europe. But back in 2018 I was planning out where I could go in the Autumn and somehow Washington DC ended up on the list – there was the option for a direct flight from Edinburgh, and it only took around 7 hours, and I was going to get a pretty good deal with my Expedia points, so I persuaded my mum to join me on my first trip to see American pandas! Also having seen Tai Shan and Bao Bao the previous year in Dujiangyan, I was quite looking forward to the prospect of seeing little brother Bei Bei while he was still living in Washington DC with his parents.
Back in November 2017 I made my second visit to the Chengdu Panda Base and spent a whole day here, which is definitely what you need to see everything more than once! On my first visit I took public transport to get to the base, this time round I took a taxi, so got there much earlier – from the centre of Chengdu it took under 30 minutes and cost around 50RMB. Getting here earlier made the difference with both beating some traffic and seeing the pandas more active in the morning. When the pandas slowed down for an afternoon snooze, I stopped off in a cafe for a break too, then did my second lap of the Base later in the day. Hopefully you enjoy this selection of photos from my trip!
