There are 4 zoos in USA that have pandas; San Diego, Memphis, Atlanta and the National Zoo Washington. I went to San Diego in 2013 and will visit Atlanta on this trip. Memphis will have to be part of the next trip. I'm not suggesting I plan all holidays to revolve around pandas but it's nice when it works out. Come to think of it a lot of my holidays have been to countries with pandas; Thailand, China, Hong Kong, Scotland - moving swiftly on....
The National Zoo in Washington is part of the Smithsonian Institution, a group of museums and research centres run by the US government. This means, as with all Smithsonian facilities, entrance to the zoo is free. It is a short metro (subway / underground/ tube) ride to the zoo and there are 2 stops you could get off at. One is called Woodley Park / Zoo and the other is Cleveland Park. They are both the same distance from the entrance to the zoo, on the same road (Connecticut Avenue) but the walk from Cleveland is more downhill. They say the whole zoo is on a hill but after having been to Edinburgh Zoo to see the pandas I would describe this zoo as being on more of a slight incline - however, it's good to be prepared and on the day we visited it was very hot so every little bit of energy saved helps! Take water!
The pandas are quite near the entrance and are seen via an easily accessible walkway which passes the outside areas then goes in to the inside enclosures.
To find out the details about all the pandas here the zoo has a great website - it also has a panda cam!
https://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/
On the day we visited there were 2 pandas on view Mei Xiang (who was inside initially doing exactly what you expect from a panda!)
and her baby Bei Bei who was born 2015. When we arrived Mei Xiang was inside and Bei Bei was outside up a tree. We went up to the Panda Cafe where there is a great view down into the outside enclosures and we had a pretty good view of him
until he came down from the tree in typical panda style - climbed half the distance - fell the rest
Anyone who's watched youtube clips of panda antics knows they bounce - really well - so Bei Bei was fine. His mum came and checked him out all the same but decided he was ok and left him to try and recover his dignity alone.
After this it was quite hot so the pandas took themselves off to the shade and assumed the usual sleepy panda stance. We felt quite lucky to have seen all this activity and interaction as pandas are not known for their energy (check out the Kit Kat panda advert to see what I mean https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnQKET83qKg )
We went off and checked out the shop and food court. We were here on a Saturday and entrance to this zoo is free so it was understandably busy when we were here. I wasn't overly impressed with the selection of "panda items" I could get but then I sometimes can be a bit too panda focused and forget there are other animals that are worthy of our attention. I also thought the food and gifts were quite expensive but if you balance that with the fact that you haven't paid to get in I suppose it makes sense. I managed to buy a few things anyway so I felt I'd contributed to the zoos income (and my collection of pandaphernalia).
This zoo doesn't have any opportunities to go behind the scenes with the pandas - for that we have to go to Atlanta and my next blog.....
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