Sunday 15 April 2012

A panda-spotting mission

Ever since the pandas arrived at Edinburgh Zoo in December, I've been half-heartedly dreaming about a trip to see them. Pandas have been my favourite animals since I was a little girl - one year my mother made me a panda t-shirt for my birthday because she couldn't find one in the shops. Another year, my most prized present was a panda book. You could say I'm a bit obsessed.

Monday morning involved an early start to check-in for our flight. It also accidentally involved three breakfasts! By 11.30am, we were checking into the glorious (and highly-patterned) Hotel Missoni. You have to check out their photo gallery - the place is amazing!

wild crockery :)
pretty bed linen
(My favourite was the brightly-coloured, stripey lift! I wish I'd taken a photo...)

Panda-hunting day was Tuesday. You have to book a time-slot online, so we had no choice but to head to the zoo even though it appeared to be snowing. I guess that's Scotland for you!

Unfortunately, the pandas weren't exactly playing ball. The female, was comfortably asleep. I could still have happily watched her all day, especially as every now and again she shuffled slightly! After about ten minutes, we were led outside to see the male panda who on cue promptly disappeared back inside. Given how popular the pandas are, the booking system is pretty strict and there was no option to retrace our steps and see him. I was pretty disappointed. I couldn't even book another slot because there wasn't any available.

Tian Tian snoozing :)
So all in all, I got to see one panda sleeping for a few minutes, and didn't really see the other one at all!

But I did have a brilliant couple of days away :) The rest of the zoo is very well laid-out and I got to see a great range of animals (including the only koalas in the UK). And Edinburgh is beautiful.

I'll have to go back to explore more of it and maybe get a proper look at those pandas!


In the meantime, there's always pandacam to keep me up-to-date with live panda pictures!

2 comments:

Rachelle Q said...

SO cute! I love pandas. We saw some at the San Diego Zoo in California many years ago. So amazing!

Elle said...

Cute pic.

I am dying to see them too and I hope when they are in Calgary that we will get to.