On a last minute whim, we decided to go on a road trip down south to the Los Angeles and San Diego area. We started off with a stop at Ventura, visited the Bonaventura mission, beaches and then went down to San Marcos..
Had a wonderful dinner with friends in Old Town, San Diego, a place we are visiting after almost 10 years!
We started 2016 with a visit to the San Diego zoo! The smiling faces of the friends, kids and our first ever sighting of live pandas made our day!
Here's to 2016! May this year bring you the best of health and wealth!
The Children Park and Zoo in Guindy is a 5 minute bus ride from my brothers place. It was a favorite hang out for us as kids and it is still a favorite for my nephew.
Have taken Jr. to this park when she was a baby but she did not remember it. This time we had an afternoon where yours truly was responsible for engaging the kids (add to that a power outage at home) and off we went to Guindy Park.
It is a neatly arranged park with a lot of animals, birds and reptiles for such a small park. The look and feel of it is very clean and the maintenance is excellent.
There is a kids play area where the kids just enjoyed the slides, swings and merry go rounds. They even have 4 folks sweeping the sands on a regular basis to clear out the leaves that fall in the sand.
It was a hot and very humid day and it was about to drizzle any minute. So the three male peacocks (two normal and one albino) all decided to dance. It was spectacular! Because of having to deal with three kids with two hands, decided to leave the camera bag at home.. Luckily had the iPhone with me to capture a few videos and pictures. Could not zoom past the wire fences, still the videos have come out nice.
Here are some pictures..
There are nice display boards for every enclosure!
There was a "roadrunner" bird. The one that comes in the Warner brothers cartoons and happens to be the mascot for our kids school! They were so thrilled to see a real roadrunner bird!
and here is the video collage of the trip..
The kids loved the 90 minutes we spent in the park. We had to rush back because of the drizzle. One can easily spend 3-4 hours in this park and have fun.
Totally recommended if you are in Chennai and want some shade on a sunny day and engage the kids..
There comes a time in every mans life when he starts straying.. and gives in to temptation. You have been faithful and loyal to what you thought was a "vision to behold", the "apple of your eye" etc. etc. only to find by chance that sometimes you might just have missed out on a lot of fun.
Okay. We are not talking about my woman here, though god knows that Seattle women who come to the Woodland park zoo on a summer weekday can make you doubt your own resolve. That zoo can as well market itself as a pickup bar! As usual we digress, especially after a whole post has been dedicated to this topic already..
Now that you have guessed the names of all those animals from their butt shots, here are their portraits. But before going further, we have to clarify. The Canon digital rebel with the simple 28-80 (non image stabilized) lens is not exactly zoo material, except for low light shots.
The BIL has recently acquired a Nikon D40 with the works (body, wide angle, telephoto, tripod, etc. etc.). He had the 55-200 lens on his Nikon and in an impulsive move, I grabbed his camera to take a shot, simply because my camera couldn't zoom that nicely. Lo and behold, what a shot!
The rest of the zoo trip, would borrow his lens at every opportunity.
Love my Canon. This is not a camera limitation. If the old Tamron 18-200 lens was there, it would have done the job. There are no imminent zoo trips, so the wait for the lens will continue.
All shots taken with D40 except the snakes which were taken with the Canon.
Finally, our wild ones..
At the end of this trip when we were driving back, one thought kept crossing my mind. Human beings, inspite of all their flaws are the most fascinating of creatures.
After a tiring and exciting adventure at the Olympic National park in Washington, a trip to the Woodland Park Zoo seemed to be the best option for the kids.
We have heard a lot about this zoo but never visited in our previous trips to Seattle. This time we entered when they opened and exit when they closed the park and must have covered every alley way in the zoo map (including a visit to every restroom and snack stall!)
This was by far the best zoo trip with the kids. Seattle apparently does not get that many days with such gorgeous weather. So people flocked to the park, even on a weekday and the animals were also well behaved. Chances are they don't get to see such nice weather either!
Zoo animals usually just show their behinds to show people how they feel about being in the zoo (which they did in plenty this time also), but for once they also came close to the people, fence, glass wall etc. to give the photographers a chance!
For some reason, the many women who visited consistently reduced the % cloth cover by about 50% compared to women outside on the street. These women were more scantily clad than women in California beaches or Disneyland on Memorial day weekend. Now, that must set the bar pretty low. The shorts that some girls wore made my shorts look like pantaloons!
Needless to say, the desi family dynamic in any place where there are way too many scantily clad non-desi women who constantly feel the urge to come tell the group that the embroidered salwar kameez with mirrors and chamki's is gorgeous, gives rise to some funny moments... (most of which are blog worthy, but will not be posted because my kids read the blog).
The menfolk, who are seasoned veterans, when it came to looking at cleavage that reminds you of the grand canyon, straight on and ignoring it effortlessly were checking the other men to see if anyone flinched. I think we should start calling it a game, aptly titled "vishwamitra". The first one to stare, gets hit on the head by his wife and the entire family.
To summarize, we saw,
Mbuni's : Mbuti's : Mbubi's in the ratio of 2 : 200 : 2000
not to mention the other animals.
You can use these photos to quiz your kids. Name the animal or bird by looking at the buttshots!
Sorry for the couple of x-rated shots there.. Must have been one of those "love is in the air" days in Seattle, and in case you are wondering...
Mbuni = Ostrich in Swahili Mbuti = Woman wearing a shorts/skirt where ass cheeks are visible in Sundari Mbubi = Woman clearly displaying bra or a clear lack thereof, again in the ancient extinct language called Sundari (a close cousin of Swahili)
You get to see the faces of the animals and birds in the next post, so do check back tomorrow.
We went on a short trip to the Sacramento Zoo, the day after thanksgiving.
We had a blast. The weather was great and the kids were well behaved throughout the two hour ride from San Jose (~125 miles one way) as well as on the ride back!
This is a great zoo! Somehow all the animals seem to be happy and were interacting with the people, seem to be healthy, well maintained and comfortable. They had zoo staff, in little booths explaining things to the kids about the animals. They even have a animal hospital on display for visitors which was very informative.
The photos and videos say it all..
Bramhopadesam paramam pavithram... cut cut cut.. this was just playtime.. this pose by the two orangutans reminded me of an old Upanayanam (poonal) photo of me and my dad with a silk cloth over our head, during the "initiation ceremony"!
They were just adorable.
The kookaburra from Australia. My mom taught Jr. "Kookaburra sits on a sorgham tree..." and it is one of her favorites!
Some of the bird cages were a little cramped but the African gray parrots were still very happy!
The long necked ones, apparently have seven neck bones, same count as humans, except the bones are long! Most of these were 13 -11 years old. They also had some giraffe skin from one that passed away at the zoo at an old age of 24 (apparently in the wild they live to be 16-17 max).
Jr. put the demo lady on the spot by asking her who killed the animal, how did they get the skin out etc. Once the questions started getting very difficult, we pulled Jr. out!
They had this metal artwork and some picnic tables nearby which were very useful to do some show and tell while feeding the kids.
Spot the main difference in the two photos below. (one is a cropped version)!
The little one is sooo impatient.
She wanted to be the big Kangaroo!
We saw what appeared to be Master Shifu..
The South American ant eater, a big hit with the kids!
The Sumatran Tiger, captured to the best of my ability through glass, wire and bamboo..
The lion was way too far to be captured with an 80mm max zoom, but the Jaguar was up close!
The flamingo pond was amazing. It was like seeing them in the wild.
After the trip to the zoo, we went on to visit Fairy Tale Land and Funderland, two other attractions across the zoo. The kids really enjoyed the day.
Here is a video of the Zoo trip..
Strongly recommended for a one day outing from the bay area!
Friday, January 1, 2016 at 6:23PM ;)
