Monthly Archives: May 2012

Last day in Beijing today. We ventured out on the very long subway ride to the Summer Palace. The subway was packed by towards the end of the journey we managed to get a seat. The summer place grounds are … Continued

After giving up on getting a clear day, let alone a blue sky we’d planned to go to the wall today. We must have spent enough time at the Department of Perfect Picture Day at the Taoist temple yesterday or … Continued

This morning we braved the subway again and headed over to Dongyue Temple – a Taoist Temple which is seemingly in the middle of the business district. After switching lines and wandering out of the train station we walked about … Continued

Today we did the touristy stuff. First we wandered down from the hotel to Tiananmen Square. Then we got in the queue to enter the Forbidden City along with 100’s of other tourists. It was a pretty grey day so … Continued

Today we were up early to head to Beijing. It turned out to be a big day of waiting. We were told it could take 1.5 hours to get to the airport so we left at 7:30am with a cab … Continued

This morning we set off for Mt HuaShan. Gave ourselves plenty of time to find a cab and get to the train station. Luckily there was one sitting outside our hotel so that was nice and easy. Driving around in … Continued

Today was our last day volunteering. Many thanks to Tiger who was absolutely tremendous. No request was to trivial or too much trouble for him. He was Mr. FixIt for the water, washing machine etc. Today we also had to … Continued

This morning the pandas were out and ready to get their pictures taken. They were out looking for food and apples. The mountains were fairly clear with a decent blue sky this morning. Rain forecast for tomorrow and a hot … Continued

Got up early but the pandas weren’t out and about much at all today. Erlang was up near the side fence chilling just before first feed at 8. Today I had yet a different keeper. This one is the usual … Continued

The pandas weren’t very active this morning. Many weren’t out at all or just sitting a long way from the camera. Erlang and YaYa were up on the hill mediating. Others were looking for someone to play with. I had … Continued

After all the rain we had our first blue sky. The smog was gone and we could clearly see the mountain. I don’t want to think too hard about what happened to the smog but it’s great to see blue … Continued

Today was really cold. Got up early and all the pandas were out which meant I could get a few pictures of ones that I don’t usually see. It’d rained overnight so most of them were a bit wet too … Continued

We get the weekends off so had a bit of a sleep in this morning, then went and said hello to the pandas before we set off on our walk up the mountain in the background. I thought it’d be … Continued

Today was our last day on the Ibis. My keeper let us take a photo inside the cages which was easier said than done. It’s actually really dark inside under the tree canopy and the Ibis don’t like to stay … Continued

This morning the pandas were up and playing in their enclosures and generally looking cute up trees and doing Kung Fu poses. These guys love to climb trees, and pull on the branches. I knew pandas climbed a bit but … Continued

There were a bunch of logs meant to become a swing for the black bears. Unfortunately a few of them had been eaten to bits by what looks like witchetty grubs. Not wanting to put it to waste we had … Continued

Early this morning the pandas were out and were quite playful. They were up trees, play fighting and generally looking cute. They make this interesting sound that reminds me of a cross between a lamb and a goat. So reckon … Continued

This morning we left the volunteer house and headed to the Shaanxi Wildlife and Rescue Centre, our home for the next two weeks. After moving our belongings into our twin share room which is quite large Tiger took us on … Continued

This morning we had our orientation at 10am, which meant it wasn’t worth trying to go anywhere so we did important stuff like washing. Got an overview of what will be happening in the next 2 weeks and v1 of … Continued

Peter arranged a minibus to take the 6 of us out to the Terracotta Warriors wait for us 3 hours and bring us back to today. So the 6 of us headed off this morning at 8 am. It took … Continued

This afternoon we made our way to the airport bound for Xian. Great thing at Hong Kong airport is they have free wifi, so we could check our mail etc. We got there pretty early and soon discovered our plane … Continued

Thursday we set off on our adventure to China. First we have an overnight stopover in Hong Kong. We boarded our A330 ready for our 9 hour flight. After flying on brand new a380’s recently this older plane seemed so … Continued