San Francisco Zoo

Went to the zoo on the 2nd of Sept. Caught the MUNI L train there which is sort of a bus/train hybrid; imagine a bus, but electric, with steel wheels, in pairs or sets of four, and running in a subway. That’s the MUNI. After travelling through the subway for a while it suddenly surfaced and whizzed along the streets. Quite fun really. Arrived at the zoo which is right by the sea. The houses round here are very different to ours, every house shares a common wall with its neighbour, and each is a different pastel colour.

Arrived at the zoo. It’s very nicely done, so much nicer than Orana Park. The whole zoo has been extensively landscaped with trees everywhere, lots of shaded little paths and lawns, well sign posted, and not too far to walk.

The had penguins, all swimming around their own little pond doing front stoke, back stroke and splashing around. They werevery cute.

They pelicans and flamingos…

 

Owls, a baby alligator…

 

A family farmyard which I really enjoyed, and no I wasn’t the only “old” person there either. They had a vending machine that dispensed pellets to feed the sheep and goats, and the goats were smart enough to know the sound of quarters being handed out and would ambush the person nearest the machine! The goats were very tame and cute, and loved all the attention.

Ange feeding the animal / someone getting ambushed by critters (but then he did buy $3 worth of pellets) / a little girl cuddling up to a posing goat.

But the coolest bit for me were seeing the free-range squirrels. They are smart enough to hang out near the pram park and raid the lunch boxes; apparently they can undo plastic containers! They’re very tame and fascinating to watch.

 

Best exhibit would have to be the grizzlies. They had a nice big pool to splash around in, and one side was glass fronted so I can honestly say that I’ve been within 3 inches of a grizzly! They’re beautiful animals, very attractive and not at all scary looking.

They’re pretty big critters, much taller than any human when standing up, and have massive claws (and lots of them). But they just love water and splashing around.

Of course there was also the big-cats… tigers, lions, and a very shy snow leopard. The snow leopard has massive paws and a tail about the same diameter as my arm. He was gorgeous, but very hard to photograph unfortunately.

 

Grossest bit was the insect house, which had lots of creepy crawlies. Worst was the hand-sized tarantula…

On the way home we had dinner at a real American diner, which was pleasantly nice. Still getting the hang of tipping though.