A Visit to the Giant Pandas!

Today Isabelle took us to see the giant pandas! Fuzhou is one of the only places in China to see pandas in captivity. There are only about 1500 wild pandas left in the world; many efforts are underway to keep these amazing animals from becoming extinct and hopefully they are successful! It was incredible to see these beautiful animals up close; they look so docile, but they are really aggressive. This is part of the reason they do not reproduce well. They are also not very good at nurturing their young. The panda being fed in the pictures below is 120 years old. She has many health issues, including cataracts, so she needs to have her food chopped for her so she can be hand fed. We also saw brown and black bears along with 'lesser pandas' - they equate those to our raccoons, but I could never see our raccoons doing the tricks that this lesser panda did:) The panda house is located in a beautiful park close to the hotel and many people gather to dance and do Tai Chi during the day - it was a fun outing.

We then came back to the hotel and enjoyed some more noodles for lunch, let Jadyn take a nap and then headed out for another walk to the park. Tonight it is room service for dinner, but we won't give American food another try. The pizza the other night was nothing more than ketchup on bread sprinkled with cheese:) The french fries were good though! We have been alternating between the Chinese restaurant and room service to change things up as there are no other food options around the hotel. Fuzhou is a beautiful city, but we are counting down to when we get to Guangzhou so we can have a little more to do along with some other options for food.

Lauren gave Jerry and I our first hug today!  It was incredible:)  She really is warming up so well to us and to Jadyn too!  She also gave Jerry a kiss on the cheek when he bought her a Dove bar; she has been pointing to it at the shop down stairs for the past few days.  She really is a sweetheart and it is evident that she has lacked one-on-one attention.  She has learned how to say "bye" to her brothers when we Skype with them and she has tried counting to ten with me, but I can sense some frustration  as she has probably never been 'pushed' to try to learn anything new.  We are patient and sure to praise her for her good efforts.  She is a joy to be around!

Here are some pictures from today -

The 'Lesser Pandas' -