Pandas!!!

Friday, August 18th

Today we visited the Wolong Panda Preserve. It has many adult and young pandas and we saw lots of pandas really close up. There are a number of pandas at the reserve that are used to human contact. As a matter of fact, Katie, Anne and Sophia got to pet a panda while Steve took our picture. It was really wild. The reserve also has sixteen baby pandas and it was hilarious to watch them play with each other. They wrestle with each other just like little kids. After the visit with the pandas we shopped at the local shops run by Tibetans. We got a few more gifts for folks back home and a Tibetan baby carrier (a very colorful embroidered sash). After a quick lunch, we took a long nap and walked around the hotel grounds. Besides the pandas, there isn’t much to do up in Wolong. That wouldn’t be a problem, if we were here for a vacation. Everyone in the group can’t wait to get back to a luxury hotel