{"id":4211,"date":"2016-03-23T22:44:55","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T05:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=4211"},"modified":"2016-03-23T22:44:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T05:44:55","slug":"pandas-pandas-pandas-even-cooler-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/23\/pandas-pandas-pandas-even-cooler-than-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Pandas, Pandas, Pandas! Even Cooler than You Think!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rick<\/a><\/p>\n

You’re looking at — forgive me — the dream of a lifetime: a personal, face-to-face meeting between my husband Rick and Ching Ching, a 1-year-old giant panda. \u00a0He’d wanted it forever. \u00a0After all, he spent a pretty large percentage of this trip’s\u00a0temple visits taking photos of resident dogs and neighborhood monkeys while everyone else went after the remarkable beauty of the temples themselves.\u00a0 We set a pretty large detour on our China visit so this could happen and I don’t think he’s come down from his happy place even three days later.<\/p>\n

This is the Dujiangua Base of the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda<\/a>, in Shiqiao (‘Stone Bridge’) Village,in\u00a0Dujiangyan Prefecture, 40 miles from the city of Chengdu. \u00a0Our brilliant guide Selina, suggested that, since Rick wanted to “hold” a panda, which\u00a0the better-known larger facility no longer permitted, we visit this brand new almost-open facility on a cool, grey morning.<\/p>\n

Unlike the closer, more frequently visited Chengdu base,\u00a0Dujiangua<\/a>\u00a0sits in a lush, quiet forest, panda enclosures set into the woods, a path allowing visitors to be just yards – and a low wall – from them. \u00a0It’s so quiet you can hear them chew their bamboo or draw a deep breath. \u00a0No noisy crowds to mar the sense of peace provided\u00a0by researchers and volunteers, just a sense of closeness, and wonder.<\/p>\n

\"thumb_IMG_6544_1024\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When someone we love is able to do something this personally meaningful, it brings at least as much joy to the rest of us. The additional gift: meeting these amazing animals and being so grateful to be along for the ride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You’re looking at — forgive me — the dream of a lifetime: a personal, face-to-face meeting between my husband Rick and Ching Ching, a 1-year-old giant panda. \u00a0He’d wanted it forever. \u00a0After all, he spent a pretty large percentage of this trip’s\u00a0temple visits taking photos of resident dogs and neighborhood monkeys while everyone else went … Continue reading Pandas, Pandas, Pandas! Even Cooler than You Think!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6,42,7,78],"tags":[3769,3773,3774,3770,3772,3771],"class_list":["post-4211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging","category-culture","category-family","category-life","category-travel","tag-chengdu","tag-dujiangua","tag-dujiangua-base-of-the-china-conservation-and-research-centre-for-the-giant-panda","tag-panda","tag-panda-reserve","tag-pandas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-15V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4211"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4217,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211\/revisions\/4217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}