Meerkat's Den

tee-hee! i saw the PANDA!!!

photos courtesy of the National Zoo at http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/GiantPandas/

I SAW THE PANDA! I SAW THE PANDA!

Actually, I saw all THREE pandas at the National Zoo!

As I've blogged about before, I've been obsessed with the National Zoo's Panda Cam ever since little Tai Shan was born this summer. (Of course, he wasn't named until 100 days after his birth, a Chinese tradition for Giant Pandas.) Anyway, way back in December, I reserved tickets to see Tai Shan and today was the day!

I wasn't actually expecting to see Tai, because I know that he is sometimes in his den and away from the public. In fact, the tickets had a note on them, basically saying, this ticket allows you into the Panda Habitat, but you're not guaranteed to actually see the cute, furry little (I mean, BIG) creatures. So I went today expecting to see lots of cute animals (like red pandas and lemurs!) and not-so-cute animals (like naked mole rats, ugh!).* I even thought, Ooh, if I'm really lucky I'll see one of Tai's parents, mama Mei Xiang or papa Tian Tian!

But I was so lucky today, I saw all THREE PANDAS! First I saw Mei sunning herself atop her den of rocks. Then a nice person pointed out to me that Tai Shan could be seen from the other side of the viewing platform. He was tucked behind a rock, in his little plastic tub! (If you read the panda cub updates, like I do, you'll know that Tai LOVES his tub!) He was all curled up in his tub, and then he stretched, rolled over, and splayed out on his back, with his belly showing, and his legs out! Eeeee, how cute! Everyone viewing the pandas let out a collective "Awwwww!" as he rolled over and bared his belly!

After my 5 minutes of viewing Tai shan were nearly up (I actually didn't use all of my allotted 5 mintues, because a little boy was wanting to see the cub, and I was blocking his view, so I let him get in front of me)...I then noticed as we walked away from the panda habitat that Tian Tian was sleeping in his enclosure, also on top of his den of rocks! Lazy pandas!

It really was the BEST ZOO DAY EVER!

And I got a Tai Shan souvenir!

photo courtesy of mobtown blues-see all the zoo photos here!

*side note: if you really want to get grossed out, check out the Naked Mole Rat Cam!

posted by meerkat35 @ 7:59 PM