Trip Report : San Diego Zoo

[IggyWH]

Ever since I've moved to San Diego, there's been one main thing that I've wanted to do and that's been to go to the zoo. I mainly just wanted to see the Giant Pandas, but I figured they'd have a ton of other cool stuff there too. My friend Michelle scored some free passes from a friend who owed her a favor, so this past Saturday, we went to the zoo.

(Pictures all link to the fullsize versions which are 3073 x 2304)

First up was the Polar Bears. Sadly, they were sleeping just like most of the animals I saw. The other one was sleeping ontop of the pile of trees, but you can't see them :




I forget what kind of deer these are, but they were labeled as the rarest deer in the world with ~55 known that exist. They're from Afghanistan :




This giraffe is a little more than 3 weeks old :




Here's one of my favorite animals, Meerkat. I love these little guys because they have so much personality and it's the first time I've ever seen them in person. If you haven't already, you got to watch Meerkat Manor on Animal Planet :




Here's a couple Snow Leopards. If you watched the Planet Earth series, there was a real cool scene that they caught one of these hunting in the wild for the first time ever on film :




This one's hard to tell what it is, even when you blow up the picture, but it's a Jaguar. He looked so pissed off :




I now made it to the Giant Panda area. There was a decent size line, but the wait wasn't long because they keep you moving once you were inside. Only two were out to see and both were sleeping, a total bummer. The first one is Su Lin and she's sleeping in the tree. The second one is Mei Sheng, and he's sleeping on a tree stump. He's getting sent back to China in October :




Next are a couple Elephants. The first is a baby and is like 3 or 4 months old and the next picture are the parents. The momma took a tinkle while I was there and if you want a mental picture, think gallons of yellow water being shot out a fire hose :




Here's a couple Koala's. They sleep up to 20 hours a day, so of course, they were knocked out :




I felt bad for this Orangutan. It looked so sad and I thought it was going to just end it all and jump over the edge :




Here's a couple Gorillas. I've seen Congo, I ain't messing with these dudes. Look how damn big the one is in the second picture :




I'm pretty sure this was the Clouded Leopard :




Before I left, I just HAD to make it back to the Giant Pandas in hopes that they were awake. When I got there, I thought it was closed because there was no line. They were still open for business though and guess what? They were awake! The first three pictures are of Su Lin. She was running around like a nut when I got there. The last two pictures are of Mei Sheng. He was just chillaxing getting his grub on. It looked like he was eating a carrot :







I got a couple videos of the Giant Pandas also. The first is Su Lin moving around (it's very short because I was getting told to keep walking) and the second is Mei Sheng getting his grub on. The links take you to Youtube :



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All in all I had a total blast. I was there for 6 hours and couldn't believe I was there for that long since time just flew. I think regular admission is $32, which doesn't seem that bad at all for everything they got. It's probably not the best zoo for kids, even though they do have some kid friendly stuff. It's also an awesome place to go if you're into plantlife as they have a ton of stuff from all around the world.

I definitely need to take a trip back again sometime soon.

[thirddan]

cool pics...i should check out the zoo in la...

[renodoc]

LA zoo sucks.

Also, the WAP pwns the SD zoo. WGASA bush line???

[orange]

come to omaha, our zoo is one of the few nice things in NE.

nice tr.

[XXXNoahXXX]

Nice pics.

Particularly enjoy the url of the site they are hosted on.

[KotOD]

[ QUOTE ]
Here's a couple Gorillas. I've seen Congo, I ain't messing with these dudes.

[/ QUOTE ]

2 things:

I don't think those gorillas have been forced into diamond mining slavery.

Also, jewshit?

[microbet]

[ QUOTE ]
cool pics...i should check out the zoo in la...

[/ QUOTE ]

LA zoo doesn't suck. It's not as good as SD, but not many are.

LA zoo has a very good chimp exhibit with a lot of activity. Orangutan exhibit is also good. There aren't too many of them, but I think there's a baby and there's a very large male who sometimes leans right up on the glass so you are an inch away from him.

They are working on a big gorilla exhibit and when it's done it should be really good.

The kids zoo is nice too and they have a decent playground.

They've lost a couple elephants and I think they are reworking the elephant area so it's not quite up to par.

The zoo is pretty hilly and in a hot part of town, so it's best when it's cooler.

San Diego Zoo has an awesome bonobo exhibit (just having bonobos is pretty awesome).

[DeezNuts]

I agree with renodoc. All zoos suck compared to the Wild Animal Park. The animals just seem so sad at the zoos(as shown in the pictures). They seem pretty happy at the Wild Animal Park.

It's more expensive, but you get to feed giraffes and rhinos in the deluxe package($120).

[daryn]

[ QUOTE ]
come to omaha, our zoo is one of the few nice things in NE.

nice tr.

[/ QUOTE ]

what do you work for the omaha tourism promotion agency or something?