Xiang Xiang full of vigor ahead of 2nd birthday

Xiang Xiang holds a bamboo stick at her outdoor yard at Ueno Zoo on Monday. (Credit: The Yomiuri Shimbun)

Tokyo's Ueno Zoo offered the media a look at Xiang Xiang playing in her outdoor yard on Monday ahead of the popular giant panda's second birthday on Wednesday.

Xiang Xiang was active as large raindrops fell around her Monday morning, running through mud and showing her face from behind a tree trunk.

Xiang Xiang had been living with her mother Shin Shin when she turned 1, but has lived by herself since the end of last year at the zoo in Taito Ward.

Xiang Xiang rolls around on a wooden deck. (Credit: The Yomiuri Shimbun)

The panda weighed 61.6 kilograms as of last Wednesday and eats bamboo and steamed buns made from rice and corn powder, the same diet as adult pandas.

The Tokyo metropolitan government had agreed to return Xiang Xiang to China 24 months after her birth, as China officially owns the panda. After talks with the Chinese government, however, the two sides agreed to postpone her return by one-and-a-half years to the end of December 2020.

Xiang Xiang shows her face from behind a tree trunk. (Credit: The Yomiuri Shimbun)

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