We took a trip to Taiwan and China in June 2019. Like most of our trips, I began writing about it shortly after. However, I got distracted somehow and never gotten around to finish it. Over a year later, picking this project back up is providing me with a nice boost of vacation memories while home-bound under COVID.
For travelers like Hong and I, the reason to visit Chengdu is its spicy and numbing cuisine. For my parents, it’s a historic city with faint traces of long-dead poets and stuff. For the vast majority of visitors to this city, though, Chengdu is primarily known for pandas. The world’s one and only Panda Base (officially Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding) is located in this central Chinese city, and receives millions visitors per year from around the world. The city itself also established its identity as intertwined with this black-and-white animal. Coming to Chengdu without seeing pandas would be like visiting London and not seeing Big Ben.
My family is not particularly into pandas, but we do love zoos and animals, and the Panda Base is among the world’s most famous and specialized zoo. A visit was a must. Given the high chance of rain, we prioritized this visit just in case we might have to postpone a few times. Turned out that we had already previewed pandas once in Taipei Zoo, and would see them for the third time at the end of the trip in Chengdu Zoo. China 2019 was a trip as much about pandas as anything else.
Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding
The name of this place could use some work, but it’s otherwise a world-class zoo with a heavy research and conservation focus. It covers so much ground that many visitors (including us) opt to pay extra to get around in an electric bus, but it houses only two species of animals – the Giant Panda and the Red Panda.
Panda Post Office 熊貓郵局
Chengdu’s post office has an actual functioning branch that’s entirely panda-themed, selling all sorts of souvenirs such as notebooks and stickers as well as postal items like postcards and stamps. We mailed a few cards home to ourselves and friends.
Chengdu Zoo
For anyone only mildly interested in pandas, a more practical place to visit is the Chengdu Zoo. It’s closer to the city, contains pandas and other animals, and its entrance fee is a small fraction of the Panda Base.
We visited the zoo on our last day in Chengdu and absolutely loved it. It was far less crowded than the Panda Base, and we got to interact with volunteer zoo staff that spoke of animals with knowledge and humor.
China 2019 index:
- Taking Kids Home
- Taipei
- Framily
- Yummy Taipei
- On To China
- Pandas & More
- Chengdu
- Chongqing
- Food in China
- Hanfu
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