The daily number of visitors to the newly opened Panda Hall at Taipei Zoo reached its full capacity for the first time since it opened on Monday, with the 22,000 numbered slips all gone by around 1pm yesterday.
The zoo had estimated that more than 100,000 people would try to visit the hall on Monday amid the panda frenzy. However, the two pandas, Tuan Tuan (團團) and Yuan Yuan (圓圓), only attracted about 18,000 visitors on the first two days of the Lunar New Year holiday.
Thanks partly to the warm weather yesterday, visitors began to line up outside the zoo long before the doors opened at 8:30am and the parking lot near the zoo was full before noon.
Taipei Zoo director Jason Yeh (葉傑生) said the number of visitors to the zoo usually reached a peak on the third day of the Lunar New Year holiday, after families had completed observance of all New Year traditions and began planning trips for the rest of the holiday.
Although the zoo extended the visit time allotted to each visitor in the hall to about 14 minutes, visitors continued to complain about being rushed through the exhibit. The zoo also received a growing number of complaints about pricey food and souvenirs in the hall.
A girl surnamed Chen accused the panda gift shop in the exhibit for raising the price of panda hats from NT$199 to NT$280 a day before.
“This hat was NT$199 yesterday, and it cost me NT$280 today. It's too pricey, and I don't understand why they increased the price of the hat from yesterday,” she said.
Ma Yu-yu (馬玉宇), manager of the gift shop, said all the NT$199 hats had sold out on Tuesday, and the new hats were more expensive because they were made of better quality materials.
The two pandas remained active yesterday, eating bamboo, wrestling and following each other around their compound. In response to speculation that Yuan Yuan was in her estrous cycle, Yeh said the two pandas, both four years old, were just playing.
The pandas would not be reproductively active until March to May, he said.
Yeh said the pandas ate six meals a day and normally took a nap after having lunch at 12pm.
The zoo suggested that visitors avoid visiting the exhibit at noon as the pandas would most likely be sleeping around that time.
The zoo encouraged visitors to call 02-2920 8889 ext. 8800 for information about the updates on the remaining number of visitors' slips before heading to the zoo.
The Taipei City Government urged the public to take public transportation to the zoo to avoid traffic jams.
Until the Lunar New Year holiday ends on Sunday, the zoo is open daily from 8:30am until 5:30pm. Normal operating hours (9am to 5pm) will resume on Monday.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS