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Another bucket list for me. We visited the Panda Breeding Centre, home to more than 300 captive giant pandas.

These charismatic and endangered animals are being reared in surroundings recreated to resemble their natural habitat and as well as being a popular tourist attraction, this is also an important scientific research facility and education centre aiming to save pandas from extinction. The panda base is huge, and you will do a lot of walking, so make sure you were comfortable shoes.  And it is also a very wet area in China, pack weather items. I had to buy a umbrella !

We saw some many pandas, both red (which are my favourites) and black and white.

And I loved finding them asleep in the trees.

Now do you see why the red pandas are my favourite, they are smaller and in my opinion cuter.

We were so lucky, in April 2017, the first twin panda cubs of the year were born in captivity. So by our visit in May 2017, they had them out on show. They have not even opened their eyes yet.

I loved visiting this place. It was a dream come true. And by visiting on a tour, our local guide knew all the short cuts to get around the base. So there is another advantage of taking a tour of China.