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On the last day of a seven-day tour of China, US first lady Michelle Obama, her daughters and her mother were awestruck after visiting the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding on Wednesday.

Obama and her daughters, Malia and Sasha, and Obama's mother, Marian Robinson, made a stop of more than an hour at the research site in Sichuan province. They wore dark-colored casual clothing on a moist but cool day.

During their visit to the scenic base, located in the northern suburbs of Chengdu, they gave out a collective "wow" as they watched a family of pandas eat their breakfast of bamboo.

Li Li, a 22-year-old female panda, was in an enclosure along with her five cubs. Not stopping their breakfast for their distinguished guests, they went on cracking and chewing bamboo.

Robinson, wearing plastic gloves, held out a long bamboo stalk that had a slice of apple at the end of it as the first lady stood attentively behind her.

Yuan Peng, an expert on US studies and vice-president of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the visit allowed the "Chinese public to have a better chance of getting to know the US first family".

The US first lady's family outings during her trip intrigued the Chinese public and prompted positive responses, said Chen Mingming, China's former ambassador to New Zealand and Switzerland.

It was "a good choice for citizen diplomacy," Chen said.

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