Panda World

We visited Panda World this afternoon, and drove around seeing damage from the typhoon. Panda World was rather dark and macabre, as it is in relative disrepair, so I wonder how well the pandas, sun bears and lesser pandas are being fed with the decay visible in the facility... one sun bear performing on a ball and parallel bars was panting heavily and obviously having some health issues. No question, it was interesting seeing the panda, and watching the sun bears perform (though imagine the smell of 10 wet dogs, times two). It was also pretty cool seeing the lesser panda (pictured), which is a member of the cat family, and native to the Fujian province. We then went into the Panda museum, which was interesting, but largely devoted to panda reproduction, with lots of things in jars of formaldehyde. It was interesting, but I'm glad our kids weren't much older, as it might have been frightening for them. We then had a great dinner (again, more Chinese, go figure) and fell into bed exhausted.