San Diego Days 4 & 5: It's a Zoo Out There

If I wasn't going to be able to go on a whale-watching boat trip (wrong season), then the one thing I wanted to do was visit the famous San Diego Zoo. Dear Husband is not a zoo person--which may be why we only got to the local zoo this summer, and only for a work event of mine--but he already says he wants to go back to visit this one. The weather started a little cool and gray but warmed and brightened up. On an excellent tip from my new SIL, we started with the free bus tour to get a good look at a lot of different things. This is clearly the strategy for a number of people, who had strong opinions about upper versus lower deck and right versus left side of the bus. After second breakfast over a cup of hot chocolate, we wound our way through the reptiles--where parents were trying to explain copulating giant land tortoises to small children--the monkeys, and the aviaries. Then we got lost trying to find the right elevator to have lunch in the Asian Passage. Next we got lucky with one of the red pandas and saw a second flock of flamingoes (for me) before doubling back to the penguins. We made a side trip to see the meerkats for DH before exiting through the koala jungle. In the evening we had dinner with a friend from graduate school. Click here if you would like to see more photos.

On our last full day in San Diego, we planned to hit up a couple of sights in Balboa Park. First up: the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. If you've been reading this blog long enough, you know that we enjoy this particular form of art, technology, and nostalgia. (For instance, we visited the Phoenix/ Scottsdale one this March.) My father is also into model railroads, so it made for a fun hour or so of "I spy" for us and my parents. Our lunch restaurant had also been recommended by my SIL: Panama 66 in the Sculpture Courtyard of the San Diego Museum of Art.

Second up was the Japanese Friendship Garden. (This is another favorite cultural/ landscape stop of ours, which I learned about DH on our honeymoon and have tried to keep up the streak since then.) Unfortunately, I wasn't able to schedule us for any activities during this trip--I'm still smarting from the cancellation of the ikebana class we were supposed to take in Phoenix in March--but we had a lovely wander through the gallery and the gardens in the valley under the sun. This contemporary art piece made out of origami cranes reminded me that I would like to do an origami project with trainees at the hospital. I worked on the lesson plan while the others napped later and think it would involve learning about the legend of senbazuru (1,000 origami cranes) and the story of Sadako Sasaki (who died of leukemia after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima), then folding cranes while thinking about the patients they want to get better and/or perhaps the relationships they want to heal. The wind chimes below tinkled all during the organ concert over the weekend, and I could hear them because we found seats off to the side of the pavilion in the shade. If you'd like to see more photos, click here.

Our last stop was Extraordinary Desserts for sweets to enjoy with our leftovers for dinner. Then we had to pack up in order to say good-bye to a wonderful vacation the next morning.