Panda Party

Jim threw me a birthday party with some of my favorite furry friends - pandas! They were a bit out of control if you ask me; climbing up trees, doing somersaults off railings, and they really got rowdy when the paws started flying. Pandas can really party till they drop (maybe that's why they're endangered?)

I had a great time with Shu Lin, an adorable one year old panda. He held my hand and wanted me to keep hugging and squeezing him, which I did. I think Jim was a little jealous.

Shin Lin and I got into some pretty deep conversations. He told me how pandas have a low chance of successfully breeding in the wild due to their slightly incompatible reproductive organs. If that wasn't hard enough - females can only take care of one baby out of each liter born in the wild - the others don't survive.

I felt especially good about the party venue because the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Center isn't a touristy place that exploits the animals to make a profit. Jim made a research donation to allow us to party down. This non-profit practices artificial insemination to create the world's largest captive panda population. They successfully produced 83 pandas from six pandas captured in the 1980s.

-Jenn : )