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Kirsten

P A N D A S @ O U W E H A N D S D I E R E N P A R K

Giant pandas moved to Ouwehands Dierenpark in Rhenen, The Netherlands in the Spring of 2017 – and they have become the latest pair of panda parents in Europe with the female giving birth on the 1st of May 2020 following a natural pairing back in January. The pandas live in a very beautiful enclosure called ‘Pandasia’ which is designed in bold red with traditional Chinese details all around, it’s fantastic! The building is in two halves, and is almost completely surrounded by the outdoor enclosures, so when you enter the main gate, on the left is one outdoor enclosure, wrapping around the left building and indoor enclosure and on the right is the same, with each panda having a half. The indoor enclosures are viewed only through glass, and you are above the panda, looking down into the enclosures which you can see in some of the pictures below. Then there are also walkways looping up and around each of the buildings, so ontop of the indoor enclosures there is a restaurant with Asian themed food, and also a panda gift shop. The walkways around the buildings are above the outdoor enclosures, so when the pandas are outside, you can view them from ground level and also above.

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Kirsten

P A N D A S @ E D I N B U R G H Z O O

My home zoo! This should perhaps have been my first post to write, because I’m from Edinburgh, so these are my ‘home pandas’ as such. Pandas arrived in Edinburgh in 2011 on a 10 year loan from CCRCGP – most of their stay in Edinburgh has already passed, and there are less than two years left unless a new deal is made to keep them on. The above picture is the original outdoor space in the panda enclosure – in 2019 a new enclosure was built, further up the hill in the zoo and in a more secluded area with more space outside. Below you can see the space under construction and Yang Guang’s yard completed. The pandas moved into their new home in the Summer of 2019, so they’ve been there for almost a year now.

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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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