Ooo.

Just got back from visiting the San Diego Zoo with ocean_song. Not bad at all, really. Not as nice for the animals as the Toronto Zoo, I think, but I seem to recall that Toronto's had some major renovations in the last few years. Way nicer than the San Antonio zoo, though (not that this is hard).

The zoo had takins, which one does not see very often. They're lovely creatures, big goatlike things that may be related to musk-oxen, although their horns point in the wrong direction to be quite the same. They also had some very friendly orang-utans, including one who came up to the glass and paid quite a lot of attention whenever someone (especially ocean_song) held up something colourful or interesting to see and another pair who I swear acted like they ought to be named after the Mackenzie Brothers. They had bantengs and bongos and Mesopotamian fallow deer, which are insanely rare.

Interestingly, they did not have wolves, at least not that I could see. We saw someone leading a wolf on a leash up to their outdoor theatre as part of an animal show, along with a big dog, but there was no wolf exhibit marked on the map and no mention of wolves anywhere there. Given that I saw a postcard with wolves on it that had both the zoo's name and the Wild Animal Park's name, I assume there are wolves in the Park. It's a pity; I should have liked to have seen wolves, but I can live without it, I s'pose. Saw some wild hummingbirds while I was there, and civets; that's cool. They have a fossa on display but it had gone into hiding by the time I got there.

Oh, and they had the Pandas. Nice little group of giant pandas, including Hua-Mei, who's due to be sent to China in a few months, and a baby panda born in August. He's too little to be on display so there's a camera in the birthing pen to keep an eye on him and his mom. ocean_song and I saw them early in the day, which was good - the line got really long really fast, and the display zone for the pandas is comparatively small.

The aviaries for the Big Big Birds of Prey were also kind of small. The birds could swoop down if they wanted, but they weren't especially long aviaries, and not very wide, either. Can't be easy to be a big honkin' bird in an enclosure that size. Poor things.

Quite a large selection of wild swine really, but I'm not all that interested in the Suidae. I have nothing against them; I'm just not fascinated by them the way I am by the Cervidae and to a lesser degree the Bovidae.

All in all it was a really lovely day and I'm glad I had ocean_song's company. So it was cool.... Oh! Oh, and I went to the beach yesterday, and walked into the ocean up to mmmm... about mid calf, I think. Very nice. Got glittery golden sandy stuff (I assume it's mica) all over my legs and feet, which of all the things that could stick to one on the beach is probably the best possibility. Didn't see any dolphins, but it was still a Visit to the Ocean, so that was cool. Also the fabric of reality is not going to tear (at least, not any more than it is usually likely to around me): I have been to a museum. The Automotive Museum, which is not usually my thing, but the Aviation Museum was about to lock its doors so one takes what one can get. They had some neat stuff there. I will try to find time at lunch to get into other museums this week while I'm here.