On to the penultimate panda to share about at the Overseas Panda Paradise, and by far the most popular panda of the day, it’s Xiang Xiang (香香)! Xiang Xiang is now 7 years old and she is a returned panda from Japan, having been born in Toyko’s Ueno Zoo. Her travel to China was delayed due to travel restrictions, so she eventually made her way there in February 2023, so has been living in China for over a year now. She’s a big favourite not only with the Chinese visitors, but there were several Japanese visitors at the base too to specifically see her. We didn’t see her out in the morning, but when we returned around 1:45PM ready to see her at her 2PM bamboo time, there was a small crowd of visitors already waiting for her. The keepers put out a big pile of bamboo, shoots, an apple and some panda cake – apparently she’s not a big fan of the cake because the apple was first choice followed by the shoots, only then did she eat the cake!

For me, this enclosure isn’t the best in terms of viewing options for the public – all the viewing of her is through glass, and there are 3 windows to choose from. One is more at the side of the hill in her enclosure, so not so easy a place to see her, the other two are at the flat concrete area which was where the keepers strategically placed her food so she would sit in perfect view. The enclosure was quite hilly overall, and there was a bit of a dip in the terrain behind the concrete platform, so many places where she can sit out and not be in the view of anyone – this gives her good options, but not so much for the public. I’m just really pleased we were at the right place at the right time for the afternoon feeding, I think I got some great photos of this cutie^

Next up in the Overseas Panda Paradise, it’s Fan Xing (梵星)! Fan Xing was born in The Netherlands at Ouwehands Dierenpark in 2020, to mum Wu Wen and dad Xing Ya. Because of the ongoing travel restrictions, I didn’t get to see her there. She then moved to China in September 2023, and now stays in the Ya’an Bifengxia Base. Her neighbours there are Bei Bei on one side, and Yun Duo and her young cubs on the other – good company I’d think, and I’ve seen pictures of her up trees and looking over into Yun Duo‘s yard, which is adorable^ Friends were visiting the day before I was and so I heard she had been quite active and near the front of the enclosure that day, that must have used her energy up because on my visit she was mostly to the back of the enclosure and sleeping! I got lucky and saw her up and moving around a little later in the afternoon, but that was only after waiting a long time – but it was worth it – she’s such a cutie =D While at this enclosure we also met a Dutch couple who were also on holiday to specifically see the pandas, it’s lovely to see other people also doing panda-filled holidays like me!

The photos I got certainly aren’t the best, she was really at the reach of my camera lens and was through several trees and bushes, but I still am happy with them.

Of course one of the most popular pandas to see at the Overseas Panda Paradise at Ya’an Bifengxia Base is Bei Bei (贝贝)! Bei Bei was born to Mei Xiang and Tian Tian (m) at Smithsonian National Zoo in 2015 and I was able to go and see him there a few years later in 2018 when he was an independent young panda^ Bei Bei then moved to China in 2019. He was such a cute little thing back when I saw him and I’m so glad to finally see him again now as an adult. His enclosure is nearby Mei Sheng‘s in the Overseas Panda Paradise area and I think it seemed like one of the largest there with two large viewing options. This enclosure is much less hilled than the others in the area, so you are pretty much at eye-level with him all of the time. The viewing at the ‘side’ was where I took all my pictures from, he spent all of the time I saw him on the concrete platform here either eating or drinking from his water fountain. To the left of the round of concrete was a pathway up to his indoor space. The enclosure extended a lot behind where he is sitting in the below picture, it was very wooded and shaded – he would be easily able to sit an enjoy bamboo there and be quite out of the eye of the public. The viewing extended all the way to the right and around his enclosure to a second viewing platform, if he had been in amongst the trees then this would have been a better spot to see him from. Continuing on from there, you would then get to Fan Xing, Yun Duo + family, and Bai Feng‘s enclosures. He was really enjoying his big pile of bamboo when I was there so it was easy to get lots of good photos of him – hopefully I can follow him some more through adulthood the next time I get the chance to be in China!

Introducing the second area of the Ya’an Bifengxia Giant Panda Base, the Overseas Panda Paradise! While a number of the pandas living here were born overseas, there are some who weren’t, nevertheless, this is the biggest area of the base with many pandas to see. This is also the furthest away area, we took the bus to get here – it’s a long walk and you don’t want to waste any time when you could be seeing pandas instead of walking! There are three different sections to this area, the main large one with five enclosures, a smaller one with three enclosures (although only two were viewable), and a second with three enclosures of which I found two to be more tricky to view (and was also the trickiest to get to, it was a bit of a walk and a lot of stairs). Read on below for part 1 of the pandas living in the Overseas Panda Paradise: