A pair of giant pandas left their home in southwest China's Sichuan Province Monday for a 10-year stay in Japan, under a joint research agreement on the endangered species.

Female panda Xian Nu and male Bi Li left Chengdu, Sichuan's capital, on board a Sichuan Airlines passenger flight at 7:50 a.m., said a spokesman with the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Wolong.

The pandas, accompanied by two keepers from Wolong, stopped in Shanghai before heading to Tokyo's Narita International Airport. They are scheduled to arrive Ueno Zoo at around 9 p.m., the spokesman said.

Panda keepers prepared 80 kg of fresh bamboo and 8 kg of dim sum for the animals to eat on the 13-hour journey.

Xian Nu and Bi Li are both aged 5 years. Pandas born in captivity can live up to 25 years.

Tokyo is rolling out the red carpet for the pair's arrival.

The Ueno Zoo was closed Monday, but a giant panda poster at its entrance caught the attention of many locals.

Kanami Matsumoto, a student from Tokyo's Nihon University, said she was looking forward to the arrival of the giant pandas. "I have seen pandas only on TV in the past. I'll certainly visit Xian Nu and Bi Li when they're ready to meet the public."

Matsumoto said she hoped the pandas would help improve Japan-China relations.

The Ueno area is filled with images of pandas as Tokyo awaits the goodwill "ambassadors." Streets are decorated with banners bearing panda cartoons, and cafes are selling panda-shaped pastries.

Ueno Zoo has spent 90 million yen (about 1 million U.S. dollars) decorating its 1,160-square-meter panda house. Zoo authorities estimated last week Xian Nu and Bi Li would be on public show in late March, if they could easily adapt to the new environment.

Tokyo is yet to choose Japanese names for the two pandas out of more than 40,000 recommendations from the public.

The zoo received its first pair of pandas from China in 1972. But Bi Li and Xian Nu will be the zoo's first pandas since the 2008 death of Ling Ling, 16 years after he arrived from China.

Bi Li and Xian Nu go to Japan under an agreement between the Tokyo metropolitan government and the China Wildlife Conservation Association signed last July.

The document was a followup to a 2008 agreement on joint panda research, reached between Chinese President Hu Jintao and then-Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda during Hu's visit to Japan.