Panda pair makes debut with rousing welcome

Ory said she waited around 30 minutes to see Yun Chuan, who was lying on a wooden climbing frame sunbathing.

"He was sleeping. He's very cute. We got to see a side profile of his face," Ory recalled. "Even though they are bears, they look so cute. They seem smaller than the other bears, and they just look like you want to snuggle up with them."

Victor Ponce, 51, brought his 9-year-old son David to the zoo to see his favorite animals.

"We were actually one of the first ones to get in," Ponce said. "We decided to take him for this. We love the pandas. We had them here in San Diego before, and knowing that they're back, it's a privilege to come and see them again. They are really fun animals."

Ponce also said there is a generational connection in his family because he and his wife had seen Yun Chuan's other family members. Yun Chuan is the son of San Diego-born panda Zhen Zhen.

" (China) trusts us with their animals, and they can have a common ground," he said, adding that they are looking forward to going to China to see more pandas. "My son wanted to go to China."

Amanda Temple, 29, from Salt Lake City, Utah, said she and her daughter got a bird's-eye view of the pandas from the bridge at the top of Panda Ridge.

"They look so cute and cuddly, and they are perfectly black and white," she said.