An expected rush to see giant pandas An An and Jia Jia failed to materialise at Ocean Park yesterday. Only a handful of people queued for two hours before opening time to be the first paying visitors to see the pair. School exams and work kept numbers down, allowing visitors a lengthy stay at the park's $80 million panda habitat. Visitors aged from two to 75 watched as the pandas chewed on bamboo and climbed tree stumps. Cerian Morris, who took her two-year-old son Cameron, said: 'We've been really excited about this.' Cameron said: 'I want to cuddle them, but they might bite.' Two 75-year-old women from Kowloon said they had waited at the gates from 8am to see the pandas. Tourist Elizabeth Fair, from Scotland, said: 'We saw them on TV last night. They're very cute.' Patrick Cheong, a business student from City University, said: 'We had no idea, we just stumbled upon them. I love the way they eat.' But the pandas were less than thrilling for mainland tourists. A visitor from Guangdong province said: 'I've seen bigger ones before, but they were not so well kept.' A 70-year-old man from the province said: 'They were dirtier and uglier than I expected.' At the souvenir store, stuffed pandas were in demand. 'We've done a whole day's worth of business in an hour,' a shop assistant said. Proceeds from toy sales will be given to the Hong Kong Society for Panda Conservation.
