Panda fans throng Ueno Zoo to bid farewell to Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei
Panda fans lined up for hours at Ueno Zoological Gardens in Tokyo on Tuesday to catch one last glimpse of Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei a day after an announcement that the twin giant pandas will be returned to China in January.On Monday, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced that the two pandas — the only two remaining in Japan — would be returned to China by the end of next month, with no prospect of another taking their place for the time being. They were initially slated to leave Japan in February but the date was moved up by about a month.“We hadn’t been here in decades since our children were little but we wanted to come after hearing they are going to be gone from Japan,” said Minoru Sawada, 67, who visited Ueno Park, where the zoo is located, with his wife on Tuesday morning. The couple, who lives in Kawasaki, lined up for over two hours to see Xiao Xiao.
