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^