san Diego Comic Con 2010: Episode V

At the San Diego Zoo, we walked past many of the animals but paid special attention to those we were most interested in. As I am an archaeologist and have studied primates to some degree, I was most interested in the primate sections. Michelle sought the ‘cute’ animals, such as the pandas and koalas. We walked to the far end of the zoo and found ourselves quite depleted of energy, as much of the park is a series of hills. Fortunately, there are escalators on some of the steeper hills (image upper left). There is also a gondola ride that takes you from one end of the park to the other (image upper right). The gondola ride seems like a romantic way to oversee the park, but when you are two scaredy-cats like us, it may not be so romantic. It brings you up what seems to be 100’s of feet off the ground and gently sways side to side, along with an occasional jarring bump. The wind was picking-up speed and becoming increasingly colder. As we sat in this off-the-ground-prison I began to think of how a strong wind could easily push the cart around and perhaps off the cable it was sinuously attached to. Michelle’s face had become white the moment we entered the cart and her grip became increasingly firm on the cart’s sides -I was no  different. Upon exiting the cart we decided we would never do that again, but it did give us a nice view of the park no matter how frightening it was for us!

One of the more spectacular exhibits was that of the Panda’s. Michelle dearly wanted to see them, and upon approaching the exhibit we saw that there was a line-up. Visitors had to line-up and enter the facility in a single file. There was to be no stopping while in the area as the staff tried to make sure that everyone would get through. As this was a weekday during the summertime, the line was long but not too bad. It took about 20 minutes to enter the facility and we spent another 20 minutes inside looking at the pandas. I think Michelle took about 50 photographs while we were in there as two of the pandas were moving about. Once we exited the facility we saw that the line was much shorter, and we went in again. In total, we went through the facility three times and each time was as special as the first for Michelle. I had to admit though, the pandas were pretty cool to see.

As the day wore down and night approached, we worked our way towards the front gates. The list of animals we saw is too long to list, but trust me that it was a lot! The enclosures at the San Diego zoo are amazing and very well kept. Even though the zoo was first opened in 1915, you would instead think it was built only a few years ago. 

 At night the zoo takes on a wholly different atmosphere. Lights of various color turn on across the park. It becomes more romantic and exotic with the sounds of tigers roaming about. The attendance at the park also drops, so we began to feel a little more private about our walk through the park. Before finally leaving we stopped by the gift store and purchased a zoo mug that had an image of one of the pandas –we try to pick up coffee mugs from wherever we go even though we ran out of room for them in our cupboards a long time ago. We left the zoo complex and decided we would again take a cab ride back. To the side of the main entrance was a collection of cabs. By the time we reached our hotel it was quite late and we were hungry as our last meal had not been for hours and consisted of the re-heated, previously frozen chunks of semi-identifiable food. Perhaps not our best judgment call, we decided to walk to the Pizza Hut that was on the corner of the Grey Hound station attached to the hotel. The pizza was cheap, warm, and enjoyably tasty. We sat in our room, stretching our calves and bemoaning the condition of our sore feet while engorging ourselves with greasy pizza. That night we slept satisfied with the past two days of vacation, ending again on a high note.

San Diego Comic Con 2010: Episode IV

Day two in San Diego was centered around visiting the local Zoo. An average zoo, such as the one back home in Calgary would require about 5 hours to walk about, although I feel that many more hours than that are needed to fully see the zoo. Nonetheless, the San Diego zoo is massive, being 107 acres in size. Built in 1915, the zoo now has over 4000 animals comfortably living within its borders that represent 800 different species. This is also one of the very few zoos in the world that houses pandas, which were a particular draw for my wife.

We didn’t have to go to out for breakfast that morning since we purchased groceries the night before. We woke up early and Michelle showered and got ready for the day while I packed the backpack for our trip: various snacks and batteries for the camera, along with a map of San Diego. We debated about taking transit to the zoo but opted instead for a cab. The cab ride was about $15 round trip, which was cheaper than purchasing a day pass for the transit. The cab ride was much faster than the transit, plus we didn’t have to worry about catching the correct bus. As we were staying at a hotel in the downtown area, there were always cabs outside, albeit primarily there waiting for people to exit the Greyhound station next door.

The ride to the San Diego zoo was quite fast. We exited the cab at the front gates and found that even though it was still early in the morning, around 9 am, there was a large group of people waiting to enter the zoo. There were a few summer school groups there, a number of other people likely taking the day off from work to take their kids, and other people much like us who were visitors to the area. While waiting in line we again met another friendly San Diego’ite (or whatever you call the native people of San Diego). He was with his son and spoke to us about how great the zoo is and how they were to visit Lego Land the following day.

The San Diego Zoo is a massive place. It can easily take a day to walk through the complex, but this would do it no justice as you would have to walk briskly past almost every enclosure. We decided to walk a counter-clockwise route and take advantage of the daylong trip. The morning weather was nice, but not exactly summer-like. As the day wore on it became increasingly cooler, and as we were wearing shorts and no jacket, we soon began to shiver.

Panda bear at the
San Diego Zoo

We forgot that we had packed snacks for the day. We bought food from a few of the vendors, where it was found to be re-heated previously frozen chunks of what might pass for food if you were trapped on a desert island. Not exactly appetizing and I do not recommend it. Water was also not something easily obtained, and when it was found it cost about $4. We opted instead for the more hideously satisfying fountain beverages, where you could buy one large cup with a gaudy plastic animal lid. The cup held about 1 litre of pop and could be refilled at no extra charge, which sounded like the most rationale choice even though the thing cost over $10. Nonetheless, I would recommend buying one of these if you forget to bring a water bottle, which we had. Also, even though the food was marginal at best, it did satisfy our hunger and didn’t empty our pocket books too much.