The wait is over! After arriving at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in D.C. last October, giant pandas Bao Li and Qing Bao are ready to meet you.
The two three-year-old pandas made their public debut on Friday.
WTOP asked some of the people that live and work in the Woodley Park neighborhood their thoughts about their two new furry neighbors.
Madeleine Johnson moved next door to the zoo on the same day the pandas arrived. While she and her dog, Alfie, took their first walk around the neighborhood, they witnessed the special delivery.
“I saw a FedEx truck coming up the street and I thought ‘the pandas come by FedEx,’” Johnson said. “Actually, they do. They were two huge trucks with the pandas in them.”
Johnson said she can see down into the zoo from her apartment, but has yet to visit it in person.
On the flip side of that are two sisters from Delaware that have visited the pandas at the National Zoo over 100 times.
Carol and Pat took the train into town and plan to visit Bao Li and Qing Bao on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. The sisters fell in love with pandas after the birth of Tai Shan in 2005.
“I’m absolutely in heaven thinking about it,” Carol said.
It’s an effort for Pat to make her way around the zoo with a walker, but she said it doesn’t make the trip any less fun for her.
“If my legs weren’t bad, if my knees aren’t bad, I’d be jumping up and down doing a roller coaster!” Pat exclaimed.
While the sisters are making the zoo their home for the weekend, local Martha Shultz is spending her birthday with a panda party.
“We have tickets for Saturday morning,” Shultz said. “We have some friends coming in from out of town and they are super excited to have this experience.”
While most of the people in Woodley Park have to wait to see the new pandas, Kenneth Faulstich has already met the new kids in town.
“I did get to see them on Tuesday,” Faulstich said.
The zoo volunteer pointed out he got good pictures of Bao Li. “He was not very active, he was mostly sleeping. The female was out in the yard,” he said.
Nearby businesses prepare for the ‘panda-palooza’
Not only are people that live near the zoo excited about the new pandas, but so are local restaurants and shops.
The pandas are good for business, not just the ones in Woodley Park.
“It’s great for the hotels. It brings more traffic into the airports. Once people are in town, they are going to go to local restaurants, visit other museums, check out a show at the Kennedy Center,” said Daniel Kramer, the managing partner at the Bamboo Bar at Duke’s Counter.
With a panda theme, the Bamboo Bar at Duke’s Counter is the only full-service restaurant and bar next to the National Zoo, Kramer said. They also offer panda-inspired drinks like the “Panda-rita” and the “Don’t Forget the Red Panda” cocktail.
Kramer pointed out what he believes makes giant pandas so special to the D.C. area.
“Regardless of age or politics … it’s the one thing everybody agrees on and everybody loves,” Kramer said.
Yael Krigman, owner of Baked By Yael, agreed, adding that customers often comment on their excitement for the pandas.
“It’s hard for everybody to agree on something these days, but we can all agree that the pandas are adorable,” Krigman said.
The bakery across the street from the National Zoo is known for its panda-shaped cake pops, cookies and doughnut-muffins. There are also panda hats, socks, backpacks, earrings and a panda-style piggy bank for sale at the bakery.
Krigman said some customers mistakenly thought the pandas were already open to the public.
“There have been a few bummed out customers, but they can eat their feelings with our panda pops,” Krigman said.
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