Flashback to Sunday, October 27.

The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding is located about a 1/2 hour drive from Chengdu. We were meant to leave at 7:30 but then the bus was delayed so we all our rooms to use the washroom but then the bus came! So we were on the road by 7:40, arriving at the Panda Base about 1/2 an hour after that. I don’t remember.

You can read about the Panda Base here.

We walked around and looked at Pandas.

There were long queues to observe baby Pandas. They were all behind glass, and by the time we were at the front of the queue and passing by, we got about 20 seconds to see them. Less if the guards started yelling at us to move along.

There were wee 2-week-old newborns, but I didn’t get a picture because the line was too fast. I got a look at them on the screen of someone else who was taking a photo on their camera, and they looked like pink rats.

After the pandas we went to a Chinese Opera in Chengdu. It was mostly delightful. I didn’t get any photos of the performance because the phone on my camera didn’t like the light (everyone in the audience was taking photos, or just video-ing the whole thing, so that wasn’t an issue here.) But we were allowed to see a bit of the dressing room with the actors putting on their make-up.