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Kirsten

Chengdu Panda Base – November 2019

I made my fourth visit to Chengdu in November last year – and managed to squeeze in 3 trips to see the pandas at Chengdu Panda Base! They were all a little short for my liking, but still there was plenty of time to see all of the pandas. I stayed in the nearby Crowne Plaza Chengdu Panda Garden which made multiple visits very easy as it’s barely 5 minutes drive down the road. Compared with my visit in November 2018, there were quite a few changes – mostly outside of the base. The main road along the front is now closed off to traffic, and across the road is now a huge pedestrianised plaza with offices, shops, restaurants and convenience stores, and it’s all decorated with pandas in mind, there are pictures everywhere, there were some paw prints all over and on the ground, even the rubbish bins had pandas all over them! Here there were machines where I *think* you could buy tickets to go into the base, there were no instructions or signs in English at them, so I bought my ticket at the main desk by the entrance, which was no problem. Inside the base there were also a few changes, with ‘Panda House 1’, the oldest house built, being renovated – I’ve since seen online the large renovation and expansion plans that the base has for the coming years, it really looks like it will be amazing.

*My trip to Chengdu was part of travel for a work conference, my employer paid for my flight to China and my hotel in Chengdu, where the conference took place. On two visits to the Chengdu Panda Base, I paid for entry myself, on the third the visit to the base was included in the conference schedule.

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Kirsten

Giant Pandas in China – An Introduction

Finally, a post about pandas in China! The Sichuan region is the place to be if it’s pandas you want to see, more specifically the city of Chengdu is very much regarded as the ‘home town’ for pandas. There are two centres for pandas, the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, simply known as Chengdu Panda Base, and the China Conservation and Research Centre for Giant Pandas, or CCRCGP which is a little easier to roll off the tongue!

Each of the centres has several bases with pandas that you can choose to go and visit, with the most popular and easiest to get to being the main Chengdu Panda Base in the city of Chengdu, and both the CCRCGP and Chengdu bases in Dujiangyan which is a city just outside of Chengdu. Other CCRCGP bases are located in more mountainous regions (more of the natural habitat for pandas) such as Wolong or Ya’an which are also well-talked about when people are considering planning a trip to see pandas. There are also zoos where you can see pandas, like Chengdu Zoo where you can also see other animals. Outside of the Sichuan region you can of course see pandas in many other zoos, particularly in the main cities.

I’ve visited China every year since 2016, and hopefully will be able to continue visiting. I have been to Chengdu on every trip, so have been to the Chengdu Panda Base at least once on every trip. I’ve been to Dujiangyan twice, and on both occasions have been to the CCRCGP Dujiangyan Base but it’s been a couple of years since I’ve been there. I’ve not made it to Panda Valley (the Chengdu Dujiangyan Base) yet. There’s advantages to visiting both, which I’ll highlight in this post and then share another post about my most recent trip in November 2019.

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Kirsten

Four Highlights From Copenhagen, Denmark

The main purpose of my trip to Copenhagen was to see the pandas – I always keep an eye on good deals for trips to places on my list, and so this time travelling meant I would have a whole day to visit the zoo and two half days to see anything else. This is definitely not enough time for all of the must-sees in Copenhagen, but there were really just a few things on my list to see in the time. With only a short amount of time, it doesn’t really give much option for going into many museums or galleries – so a lot of things were very much me looking from the outside!

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Kirsten

Copenhagen Zoo

I’ve already talked about the pandas at Copenhagen Zoo – now for the rest! It’s a large zoo with a lot of different species to see. It’s just outside the city centre, you can take the bus, however we walked from the centre and it took around 35 minutes and was a pretty direct walk. Even in late January it wasn’t too bad to walk in the chillier weather. The vibe of the zoo really reminded me of Edinburgh Zoo, maybe it was the similar cold January climate, or the design of the buildings and enclosures. The zoo has been able to expand across the street, with an underpass connecting the sections. The zoo is split into different themed regions to split the species on show – it’s well indicated on the map, but I didn’t feel the difference so much while I was there myself. But it makes it a good path to follow through the 4 main regions.

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Kirsten

P A N D A S @ C O P E N H A G E N Z O O

Copenhagen Zoo is one of the most recent European zoos to become home to a pair of pandas! Copenhagen Zoo is one of the oldest in the world, whilst some parts show the age of the Zoo, there are also some new modern buildings and designs – which include the brand new panda enclosure. One thing I quite liked was the live webcam before the pandas even arrived so you could watch the enclosure being built – that’s definitely something different! The pandas have now lived there for a year following their move to Denmark in April 2019, and their enclosure was officially opened by Royalty. The pandas are based very centrally in the zoo between the Asian and Northern areas, so it’s easy to check out some animals and then come back in case the pandas aren’t out or aren’t doing too much when you first arrive.

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