Met the Pandas!

Well apparently the blog did make it up which is great.

9th June 2009 - 10:01pm

Today is one of those days where so much has happened you can't quite
believe it has just been one day.

We had breaskfast - rice and warm orange squash again. Then we headed
down to the coach station. 2 and a half hours later we were met by a
minibus to take us to the panda sanctuary - let again the roads are
truly petrifying.

We arrived at the sanctuary and it is really pretty, all very Tibetan
in style. All the boys in the same room. They are basic rooms but not
unpleasant with chinese style toilets and bizarre showers you have to
plug in - doesn't seem very safe, electricity and water hmm...

We then had lunch before entering the sanctuary and saw our first
panda! They are probably as large as I expected but nothing until you
see them up close. We now have our own unoiforms which are rather
fetching and very large. Along with that are gloves with the nice
orange lining.

We then had a look at the baby panadas. Again amazingly cute, 4 of
them in one enclosure. The keeper came and gave them milk and they all
started fighting over it. One did a forward role over a wooden ledge
and fell off.

Had a bit more of a tour before dinner and playing cards. Early start
tomorrow as work starts at 8am and finish at 5:20pm.

10th June 2009 - 10:36pm

Well first day with the pandas! Breakfast was great - we had congee
again, but unlike on the plane we had sugar which made it a lot more
bearable, we also had dumplings which are really nice.

From there we walked to the base where we work and met our "master" -
aka our keeper we are following for 3 weeks. I'm also paired with Amy
who is also here for 3 weeks which is good as our keeper doesn't speak
a word of English so just a matter of pointing.

Our first job was to clean our their enclosures. Amy and I had one
each, it is just a matter of getting rid of all the excess bamboo they
haven't eaten, sweeping up and picking up endless amounts of faeces.
My panda is in oestrus so hardly eating and a wonderful upset stomach
so not amazingly pleasant.

We then cleaned up their indoor cages before having a bit of free
time. We then went and fed the male panda some carrots before having
lunch ourselves.

After lunch we went back and fed the panda (they get fed up to 6 times
a day!). Then as the female panda is in oestrus she had to moved cage
ready for potential mating. Amy and I could hardly carry the transport
cage empty yet after the panda was in the cage these two scrawny men
were able to carry it.

She was placed into one of the male enclosures with the male still
inside just to get her scent around, then she was placed in the
enclosure alongside and the male released into his so that they could
see each other. The female did a weird side to side dance standing up
against the wall.

After that our time was free so amy and I went and had a look at the
kindergarten and the baby pandas - so sweet! All tumbling around and
playing.

Instead of having dinner at the hostel we had arranged to go to the
nearest ciry - Ya'an, about 30 minutes away (the taxi cost us 2 pounds
each way!!). We arrived just about in one piece. Form there a few
people needed memory cards for their cameras so we went to a kiosk
where you order what you want and in about ten minutes a guy on a
moped brings it along - weird type of Argos.

Ya'an city has the most amazing bridge with shops on so we had a look
around there before going for dinner in a very crowded restaurant. I
know I've mentioned before about being stared at but it was the worst
today - everyone we passed suddenly dropped their jaws.

After dinner we went back to the bridge and shops where my apparent
love of tea came out. I bought an amazing hand made tea pot that looks
like it's made from wood with a little lizard on top. I also bought
some local first flush green tea.

Dima bought a "firework" which he was going to fire off the bridge but
clearly got conned as it turned out to be a massive party popper full
of streamers.

I also tried chicken's tongue - certainly an interesting snack and
held a baby terapine in my hand at a pet store before coming back.

More cleaning cages tomorrow...