Pandas!

Today was Eleanor's 3rd birthday, so I took the day off work, and we (Mummy and I) took James and Eleanor to Adelaide Zoo - mostly to see the pandas.

I've loved pandas all my life, and have been lucky enough to see a few. Mummy and Daddy took me (and my sister) to see Fei Fei and Xiao Xiao on Melbourne Zoo when they visited Australia for 6 months for the bicentenary in 1988, then in 1990 we went to China and saw several at both Beijing and Guilin zoos, and then when we were in London in 1991, the London Zoo just happened to have a panda as well. James and Eleanor have no idea just how lucky they are to have pandas in 'our' zoo for the next 10 years!

I didn't get any great photos today; next time I'll take the long lens. These are all of Wang Wang, who was out for his morning walk; Funi was having a sleep-in (smart girl!).

When he walks past this glass, he's only about 10cm (4in) away!

When you enter the zoo, you get allocated a 'viewing time' for the pandas. Ours was 9.45, and you get about an hour (I didn't actually look at the time). It was very busy to start with (it is school holidays) but about half-way through the time, most people had drifted off, and we had complete freedom to follow Wang Wang along his enclosure and take plenty of photos and video.

Eleanor had a lovely time walking back and forth along this path, tip-tioeing in each little square.

A very happy 3-year-old!

James' favourite animals were the penguins; we spent easily 15 minutes watching them jump in and out of the water. The only two creatures I actually photographed today were black and white!

Now also seems like a good time to answer another of the questions from the week 3 giveaway; Duff asked: "If there were nothing prohibiting you from doing anything in the world, what would you do first?"

Well, what I would really like to do is touch a Giant Panda. I know they're not as soft as they look, and I don't care. I would love to be able to cuddle one. One day I'll return to China and fork out to spend a week 'helping' at somewhere like the Wolong Panda facility.

Back to quilty stuff tomorrow, I promise!