A dream come true

When Lianne came three years ago for the first homeland tour, they visited the Beijing Zoo and pandas were on the list to be seen.  Shauna and I were stalking the blog for days looking for panda pictures. Days after there was ONE panda shot -- kinda blurry, through glass, but a panda shot nevertheless.

 
Three years later Julia and I took nearly 250 pictures of pandas. Thank you Lianne and Marui for making this day possible.
 
This day was one of the top three things Julia wanted to do -- and most often it was number two after visiting her orphanage.  I still can't believe that we saw them.
 
We were excited from the get go -- although you might not be able to tell as I took advantage of the loooonnnngggg bus ride and did some marking.
 

 

Julia wore her panda shirt in honour of the occasion. Our spirits were high, not dampened (excuse the pun) by the damp and dreary weather. 
 
The Giant Panda lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, mainly in Sichuan province where we are. Due to farming, deforestation, and other development, the Giant Panda has been driven out of the lowland areas where it once lived. On our way to the Bifenzxia Panda Reserve we learned that this facility had about 180 pandas, many of whom came from the famous Wulong reserve after the 2008 earthquake. There are an estimated 2000 pandas now in the wild and in reserves such as this one in ALL of China. Hard to believe when there were once so many.
 
I wasn't sure what to expect -- I knew it would be a natural habitat setting, similar to what we enjoy at the Toronto Zoo, but I was not prepared for how close we'd be to the pandas while looking at them.
 
The were many squeals of delight when we saw this first panda -- and look how far we were away -- but that didn't squelch our excitement.
 

 

The anticpation was building as we saw signs along the panda path
 

Here was the second shot of a panda -- we were getting closer, but still using telephoto lense on the camera.
 

 

Julia was crawling out of her skin to get to her furry friends.  It was all I could do to hold her for shot of us in the tranquil setting of the reserve.
 

 

She immediately broke free of me to run ahead and all I could hear as she was ahead on the path was "Oh, Mama!" And she was right...Here was one up close...
 

 

I had to take one of her with the panda
 

 

I had to force her to pose because she was so excited to photograph their every move - she took 140 pictures herself.  Here are some of the highlights...
 

 
The anticipation was building to Julia's time with the panda -- so we had to calm her down with some panda ice cream and some panda retail therapy.
 

 
And then finally it was our turn. We were told MUCH to our disappointment that the kids weren't going to be able to play with baby pandas - but with 1 year olds. The girls didn't care as they got suited up.
 

 

And then it was time -- the pictures aren't the best b/c I was juggling the video camera at the same time. But here they are...
 

 
It was an incredible few moments - the girls showed no fear - Julia was delighted to feed her panda a carrot and some panda cake.
 
Everyone agreed it was worth the wait - a day we'll never forget, etched on the collective memory of our families in the mountain.