Tuan Tuan, Yuan Yuan were quickly taken to their new home after arriving in Taiwan Taiwan News, Staff Writer 2008-12-24 11:37 AM Upon arrival on Dec. 23, Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan get familiar with their habitat at the Taipei Zoo. People unload the cage containing Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, two giant pandas from China, from an EVA Airlines plane onto a truck before heading to Taipei Zoo in Muzha yesterday. Giant pandas Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan arrived their new home Taipei Zoo on Dec. 23. The two began having dinner within half hour of their arrival. Giant pandas Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan arrived their new home Taipei Zoo on Dec. 23. The two began having dinner within half hour of their arrival. Central News Agency Two Chinese pandas paced around their new home at the Taipei Zoo yesterday evening at the close of a high-profile trip widely considered as a symbol of improving cross-straits relations. The endangered animals were promised to then-Kuomintang chairman Lien Chan during his 2005 landmark visit to China. Earlier this year, the new KMT government agreed to accept the pandas and designated Taipei Zoo as their new home. The four-year-old animals were named Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan, from the Chinese word "tuanyuan," or unity. The duo left Ya'an in Sichuan Province at 8:15 a.m. as hundreds of residents bade them farewell. Upon arrival at Chengdu Airport, song-and-dance performances formed the backdrop for the animals being lifted aboard a special EVA Air Boeing 747-400. The plane took off at 2:21 p.m., and landed ahead of schedule at 5:03 p.m. at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport. Six animal health inspectors and three vegetable specialists boarded the aircraft to perform a checkup on the animals and on the Sichuan bamboo products accompanying them. The two cages holding the pandas were then loaded onto a refrigerated truck. All traffic lights on the way were switched to green so the vehicle could maintain a stable speed. Accompanied by a police escort, the pandas arrived at the Taipei Zoo just before 7:30 p.m., rounding off an almost 12-hour voyage. Waiting crowds did not get an opportunity to see the pandas as there was no welcoming ceremony. The animals were immediately moved into their new home, a NT$310 million pavilion at Taipei Zoo where they will spend their first month in quarantine. Tuan Tuan was the first to pace around the bamboo leaves and tree trunks strewn around to give the white room a more natural feel. Yuan Yuan soon joined him to climb on the trees and look at television camera teams through bars. The pandas will live under close supervision. Their first meal will include three types of bamboo from their home region in China, as well as three varieties of Taiwanese bamboo. The public is likely to get its first glimpse of the animals late next month, at the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year holiday. Visitors to the panda pavilion are unlikely to include lawmakers from the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, who said they would boycott the Chinese animals. "I'm banning my relatives from going to see the pandas, because one shouldn't use wild animals as presents," DPP legislator Lee Chun-yee told reporters. http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=821006&lang=eng_news ※ 編輯: hisunshine 來自: 118.166.5.251 (12/25 11:01)