Today, we got to see a Panda.  We made a short one hour flight from Xian to Chongqing, the world’s largest city, population wise. The city has over 45 million residents. It is in the mountains.

When we got there, there was a heavy smog hanging over the city. So all my pictures reflect this.

Chongqing is on the Yangtze River, the longest river in China and the third longest in the world. The city has a history dating back more than 3000 years. It is the place where General Chiang Kai Shek went during World War II and made his stand against the Japanese. He made this city his war time Capitol.
As soon as we got to Chongqing we took a bus to their zoo where the pandas live. Loved seeing the pandas but it was very muggy outside, though it was only in the low 80s.

I wonder if the pandas feel this heat, too.

The humidity was high, and this city is semi-tropical. It reminded me of the vegetation in north Florida with magnolias, coleus, palmettos, nandinas, canna lilies and crepe myrtles. The humidity rose even more around 4 pm, and I kept thinking it would rain soon.

The pandas gave us a great show, coming out to eat the bamboo that they had just put out for them.

Pandas eat lots of bamboo, about 40 pounds a day. They do this for up to 12 hours a day to get enough nourishment.  All they do is eat and sleep.

There was a panda cub born about two weeks ago here, but he is still in an incubator with his mother. He just opened his eyes. When he was born, he weighed about the same as a large apple. This was normal weight.
We saw a Lesser panda, but we all thought it looked like a raccoon. They once thought the great panda was kin to the raccoon because of his eyes.

We also visited the pen of a white tiger.

After dinner at a hot pot restaurant, we walked past their City Hall which was quite beautiful.

Then we boarded a river boat called the Victoria Anna. We will spend the next three days cruising the Yangtze River through the Three Gorges. This is a Victoria Cruise line ship.

As a side note, we are watching the super typhoon Meranti. It is supposed to hit Taiwan sometime tomorrow. Our cruise ends, and we go to Shanghai on Friday. Then we end up in Hong Kong. Taiwan is halfway between Shanghai and Hong Kong.
With our luck and hurricanes, we’re keeping an eye on it.