The next panda I saw a lot of was Ya Xing 雅星 who was living in Outer Ring House 3. He is a 9 year old male who looks strong and active. I can’t see any information about him online, other than that his mother is Qian Qian 芊芊 who was born in 2006 (and has a few other cubs, so he has siblings!). The first time I went to his yard he was sitting eating with his back to everyone (being an Edinburgh Zoo local, only seeing a panda eating from behind was a very typical experience!), but after 5 or so minutes he picked up a big stalk of bamboo and carried it down to his little pool to eat it while sitting in the pool! Later on when I went back to him, he was having a really good wander around his whole yard, doing some scent marking and going in the pool again. A really nice panda experience =)

I’m so excited to finally see Xiao Qi Ji 小奇迹! He is a young 4 year old male who was born at Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington DC, USA back in 2020 and in 2023 moved to China with his parents as their loan period was up. He is the 4th and final cub of Mei Xiang and Tian Tian from their time in the US – and the last one of the family that I hadn’t seen! I saw oldest brother Tai Shan in 2016 and 2017 (and here in Wolong on this trip too!), sister Bao Bao in 2017, then I saw parents Mei Xiang and Tian Tian and brother Bei Bei in 2018 in Washington DC, and already saw Bei Bei on this trip in Ya’an Bifengxia. So of course it’s easy to track his growing up by many photos and videos posted online, and he remains to be a popular panda in China – his was one of the busiest yards when I was there. Luckily he was very active when I was at his yard – first he was sitting at the back near the house having some bamboo, then he made his way down near the front and lounged on one of his climbing platforms. After spending some time there posing for the people (he knew what he was doing!), he then headed towards a rock structure and eventually settled there for a nap. Honestly, he’s such a cutie =) I thought his yard was definitely one of the more interesting ones with plenty of climbing options and a good range of elevations. So happy to see him and finally get all of the ‘original’ DC family ticked off^

I can’t believe I finally made it to the Wolong Shenshuping Giant Panda Base! Honestly, this felt like somewhere unachievable to get to, I never thought it would happen. I don’t love a long car ride, so I had been apprehensive about going here as it was made out to be a really long drive out, but actually it was only just over an hour from Dujiangyan city centre and the time passed pretty quickly (for me, an hour is my typical bus journey to work so that length is pretty normal) with pretty mountain views and chatting with my friend. Definitely start the trip from Dujiangyan if a long car ride is something you’d rather avoid. We left around 8AM on a weekday and the roads were surprisingly very quiet, there was almost no traffic stopping us at any part of the journey.