I'm a Panda Party Planner for Kai Kai and Jia Jia at River Safari [1/2]

Thank you CapitaLand for picking me to be one of the 5 lucky winners from a twitter contest to be a Panda Party Planner! I was really overjoyed when I received a call from them telling me of this good news! How I get to know this contest is when I was checking through River Safari website for any events and promotions the other day before I went for the family trip. Read my previous post here.

And this is what I saw on the website... 

As I continued to scroll to the bottom of the page and I found this. 

All in all, River Safari have planned for 10 lucky individuals to be the Panda Party Planners. 5 were chosen from Mypaper and contestants have to write in no more than 100 words on why they deserved to be a Panda Party Planner. The other 5 were chosen from CapitaLand and contestants have to tweet about why we should be chosen as a Panda Party Planner. 

My winning tweet... (Inspired by Xiaxue daily comic of her baby Dash, so I came out with a Panda Comic for Kai Kai too =P)

As early as 8.30am, all the 10 excited lucky winners have already gathered at the entrance of River Safari. Among us were reporters waiting to interview us and taking photos of us. They followed us throughout the whole event and try to interview us as and when we are available. The CEO of River Safari, Mr Lee Meng Tat also came out to give us a warm greeting. 

 We were told to change into the white panda tee that they provided for us and also the black arm cover as our first stop is to the restricted bamboo nursery. Wearing the black arm cover is to prevent any allergies anyone might have with the bamboo leaves.

Erinna, the horticulturist of River Safari brought us through this guided tour. We learnt from her that four different types of bamboos namely the Hedge Bamboo, Sulphur Bamboo, Thai bamboo and the Buddha's Belly Bamboo were specially grown in this nursery to provide for the pandas. The bamboos were planted as early as two years before the panda arrived in Singapore. The Red Panda only loves the Hedge Bamboo while Kai Kai and Jia Jia is a mixture. 

Both Kai Kai and Jia Jia will each need to consume about 20kg of those bamboo every day! To ensure that Kai Kai and Jia Jia get the freshest bamboo, the bamboo is cut, wash and transported over from the bamboo nursery to be stored in a specially designed room within the kitchen on a daily basis. Most of us get onto the lorry together with the bamboo. Some of them who are unable to get onto the lorry have to walk. 

We had our tea break and some of us gathered in front of the giant water tank to see Inuka, the Giant Polar Bear. Caught a glimpse of Inuka swimming about. Cute!  

After we have our tea-break which is the very cute panda bun and soya bean milk, we are all ready for the next task! To go behind-the scenes with the panda keepers and learn about the panda diet and what the keepers need to take note of everyday. 

The two panda keepers guiding us are Halim and Jules. Before we can even stepped into the Giant Panda Forest Kitchen, we have to ensure that we have a mask on and we have to make sure our shoes are properly sterilized by stepping into the pool of disinfectants just before the door.  

Yes, we are now inside the Giant Panda Forest Kitchen viewing the visitors from the inside and them seeing us from the outside. 

On this white board is what the Panda Keeper have to update about 4 times a day. It is used to keep track of Kai Kai and Jia Jia's diet, their weight before eating and after eating, the amount of leftovers and even their faeces. Their faeces are being graded too. 

This is the Bamboo Storage Room just beside the Giant Panda Forest Kitchen. The temperature inside is only 16 degree and the bamboo can only be kept for up to 3 days here. The panda keeper have to sprinkle water every now and then to keep the bamboos hydrated. 

The out-of-bound area. This is the two separate cages where Kai Kai and Jia Jia retreat to at night. Or for the shy Jia Jia, even during the day. Temperature here is 22 degree.

The next interesting task is for us to work closely with the panda keepers and horticulturalists to assist in preparing Kai Kai's birthday cake and Jia Jia's enrichment toy. To ensure fairness, we have to ballot to see which team we got into. 

The crumbled piece of paper decided my fate to go to Team Kai Kai. So this is how Kai Kai's birthday cake will look like. 

While Team Jia Jia stayed at the Giant Panda Forest Kitchen to prepare the enrichment toy, Team Kai Kai were being transported to the Amazon Flooded Forest back-of-house.

We worked together to bundle up the bamboo and place some bamboo leaves in the basin. After that, the basin is filled with water and kept in a -20 degree freezer to turn it into ice. The challenge in making this panda birthday cake is to ensure that the bamboos are tied firmly, a few times, we thought it was firm already but it turned out not so stable so we have to add more small bamboo around it. We managed to finish this task within the time given so we still have time for another important task. 

This important task is for us to get an exclusive tour inside the exhibit of the two panda. We will assist the panda keepers in cleaning the exhibit and also to place fresh bamboo for the pandas to eat. They call this the great wall of River Safari as it's a long passageway into the enclosure. One of the panda party planner wore a very cute panda cap.

The empty exhibit. 

Finally we saw some pandas, panda party planners I mean. Yes, although we got to go inside the panda's exhibit area, we didn't get any close encounter with the pandas. They were being lock back inside their cage while we were doing the cleaning up and placing of food. Pandas are still bear by nature so don't think that we got to hug them or shake their paws. We also view them like the rest of the visitors from outside one. 

We have to be very careful inside there as now once inside, we are being viewed by the people outside. 

We placed one of Jia Jia's enrichment toy inside Kai Kai's exhibit area. 

And Kai Kai simply loves it! 

A few minutes later, that one bamboo was already eaten until only shreds are left. 

Panda Jia Jia did not come out today so we walked back to see the red panda. It was so active today he was crawling along the tree trunk above where the people are walking. We were quite curious as to whether it will jump down or not but it didn't la. 

We are the winners from CapitaLand! 

Bamboos! 

I shall end my post with another panda comic I've created. It was indeed a fun and memorable event but that's not the end cause on the 6th September (Friday), we are given the chance to come back again, this time to present the birthday cake and present to the panda. Thanks for reading my post. Stay tuned to my next post, I'm a Panda Party Planner for Kai Kai and Jia Jia at River Safari [2/2]. 

Other interesting reads: 

1) CapitaLand newsletter : http://inside.capitaland.com/panda-journey/201309-all-set-for-a-paw-some-panda-party

2) Channel NewsAsia article : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/party-planners-get-busy/798342.html