National holiday in China meant a week off for us volunteers so we booked flights to Chengdu and found somewhere to take a breather from the hecticness of Shanghai. Floods, earthquakes and over-zealous transportation rules meant that we had to fiddle around with our original plans but it turned out to be the most amazing week all the same.

On our first of many ridiculously early mornings, we got a minibus to the Panda Reserve to meet China's national black and white treasures. Mornings are apparently the best time to see these bad boys as they are most active when they wake up. A bit of yawning, bamboo scoffing and some slow-paced sauntering convinced us that these were the cutest bears in the world (Rolly aside of course). And just when we thought we had done all the awwwing and ooooing we could possibly manage, we were led into the panda nursery to see baby pandas being fed and cuddled by some lucky "panda mum" chinese ladies. Luckily there was glass in between us and the babies or else I probably would have smuggled one back home and then have had to face the plight of sharing my bed with a giant panda for years to come.
The pandas were so lovely that the trip to the Panda Reserve close to Chengdu is definitely the best thing we've done in China they are really cute and entertaining, exactly what you think they'd be like. They are so uncoordinated and keep falling over each over and off of things. They can also climb trees with big claws and do other stuff that you'd think such a big chubby bear would have no hope of doing.

Tip: Don't go with a tour, take the public buses right to the centres gates which will save you 50+ yuan, no need for a guide as there is plenty of english information about.

We saw some mature Panda's sitting around eating lots and lots of bamboo (approx 40kg each per day), some very playful youngsters (on climbing frames and chasing each other) and some extremely cute babies who were looked like big fluffy teddy bears. The dozen or so babies were all less than 6 months old. Some hadn't quite mastered crawling and were just falling on their tummies with arms and legs in all directions. They were in a large cot and had 2 'human' Mum's taking care of their needs. We also saw some racoon like red panda's who were quite amusing to watch as they climbed around the trees.

We were pleased to see the Panda's had plenty of space to themselves and a variety of climbing frames to keep them amused. At one point the number of Panda's in the world got to just below 100. Now, it is thought to be just below 1000 in both the wild and captivity. This has only been possibly with the intervention of conservationists and scientists.

A fantastic visit!!!