San Fransisco, Day 2
Mar. 22nd, 2011 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tanarillToday, we did (a bit) of Golden Gate Park.
We were going to go to the Conservatory, but it was closed because apparently they were cleaning it from the inside. So instead here are some plant pictures I took.
Some kind of spiny, succulent plant. I do not know what it is, but it looks cool.
Give me all of your lupins!
We went to the Japanese Tea Garden first instead, where I took pictures of interesting topiaries and faunas and statuaries.
A Japanese-style cherry, in blossom. This blurry thing is, sadly, the best picture I have of it. This camera has a bajillion settings, and it takes crap pictures unless you use the right one. I'm still getting used to it, so forgive me any further blurry pictures.
KOI!
A small rock garden. I have read that the rocks in these represent water, and certainly with the way these were raked they looked very wave-like.
An interesting topiary. The roundish, asymmetrical green bits look a lot like the traditional Japanese depiction for a cloud, so this is the cloud-tree.
A pair of ducks, sleeping in the sun. Later they woke up, and were absolutely unafraid of people; they let me get within a foot of them and even then, they gave me this expectant look, like, "Where's my food, human?"
Giant Buddha Statue! He's sitting on a lotus, enjoying enlightenment.
The we went over to the museum of Science! It had exhibits about biology-type Science! mostly, which I enjoyed. My camera lost power partway through, but I will put up what pictures I have.
These trees were outside the front. They look very odd, and have exactly one live branch coming up from each little node. I wonder what they actually are, and how they survive with so little foliage allowed to them . . .
Giant sea clams! They are very colorful when they are alive. The exhibit said that they'd been harvested nearly to extinction for pearls, but the invention of cultured pearls and conservation efforts have resulted in a slow but sure rebound in populations.
Tree frog! We did see some poison dart frogs also, but after my camera died so picture-taking was somewhat impossible.
Rattlesnake! A diamondback, even. It was quite active, looking at all us strange people but not rattling at all. I suppose it is used to strange people staring at it.
Jellies! Or, rather, sea nettles, but we all know they are jellies. The aquarium also has an exhibit of jellies that live upside-down and grow plankton. The plankton give the jellies sugar for eating, and the jellies give them a home and also pump water so they get nutrients.
They have a rainforest in a dome. Actually, they have several rainforests in a dome, because the ground level is in Madagascar but the canopy is in Borneo. These next pictures come from the rainforest dome, which was hot and humid.
Geckos! They did not hawke car insurance, or speak with English accents.
Giant toad! Sorry for crap picture quality, flash wasn't allowed in the dome, so unless there was a light the pictures were a bit odd.
A view of the "flooded" forest floor, from the middle layer. If you look carefully, you can see: 1. the most enormous fat lazy koi fish you have ever or will ever see; and 2. the walkway underneath, where people in the basement can look up and see the enormous fat lazy koi and rainforest dome.
It is at this point that my camera died, which is a shame because the very next thing to happen was a blue morpho butterfly landing on me! Twice! JJ was standing right there and I handed him my camera, but it was out of power and would not turn on. So SAD ;_;
There were also cool poison dart frogs and giant orb spiders that I could not photograph. In real life, the dart frogs are tiny! And colorful; being poisonous doesn't help unless your predator know it, after all.
Also, there was an almost complete and real blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling. I found it interesting that the whale has disconnected hip bones, and even hind knee bones, but they are entirely vestigial and don't connect to anything.
Anyway, after the museum, we went to dinner at The Stinking Rose, a restaurant which flavors its garlic with food. This is of course in keeping with the garlic theme of this vacation, and boy was it ever. They even had garlic ice cream, which was actually pretty good.
Now I am done typing up the report for the day, so I will go sleep. Laters!
We were going to go to the Conservatory, but it was closed because apparently they were cleaning it from the inside. So instead here are some plant pictures I took.
Some kind of spiny, succulent plant. I do not know what it is, but it looks cool.
Give me all of your lupins!
We went to the Japanese Tea Garden first instead, where I took pictures of interesting topiaries and faunas and statuaries.
A Japanese-style cherry, in blossom. This blurry thing is, sadly, the best picture I have of it. This camera has a bajillion settings, and it takes crap pictures unless you use the right one. I'm still getting used to it, so forgive me any further blurry pictures.
KOI!
A small rock garden. I have read that the rocks in these represent water, and certainly with the way these were raked they looked very wave-like.
An interesting topiary. The roundish, asymmetrical green bits look a lot like the traditional Japanese depiction for a cloud, so this is the cloud-tree.
A pair of ducks, sleeping in the sun. Later they woke up, and were absolutely unafraid of people; they let me get within a foot of them and even then, they gave me this expectant look, like, "Where's my food, human?"
Giant Buddha Statue! He's sitting on a lotus, enjoying enlightenment.
The we went over to the museum of Science! It had exhibits about biology-type Science! mostly, which I enjoyed. My camera lost power partway through, but I will put up what pictures I have.
These trees were outside the front. They look very odd, and have exactly one live branch coming up from each little node. I wonder what they actually are, and how they survive with so little foliage allowed to them . . .
Giant sea clams! They are very colorful when they are alive. The exhibit said that they'd been harvested nearly to extinction for pearls, but the invention of cultured pearls and conservation efforts have resulted in a slow but sure rebound in populations.
Tree frog! We did see some poison dart frogs also, but after my camera died so picture-taking was somewhat impossible.
Rattlesnake! A diamondback, even. It was quite active, looking at all us strange people but not rattling at all. I suppose it is used to strange people staring at it.
Jellies! Or, rather, sea nettles, but we all know they are jellies. The aquarium also has an exhibit of jellies that live upside-down and grow plankton. The plankton give the jellies sugar for eating, and the jellies give them a home and also pump water so they get nutrients.
They have a rainforest in a dome. Actually, they have several rainforests in a dome, because the ground level is in Madagascar but the canopy is in Borneo. These next pictures come from the rainforest dome, which was hot and humid.
Geckos! They did not hawke car insurance, or speak with English accents.
Giant toad! Sorry for crap picture quality, flash wasn't allowed in the dome, so unless there was a light the pictures were a bit odd.
A view of the "flooded" forest floor, from the middle layer. If you look carefully, you can see: 1. the most enormous fat lazy koi fish you have ever or will ever see; and 2. the walkway underneath, where people in the basement can look up and see the enormous fat lazy koi and rainforest dome.
It is at this point that my camera died, which is a shame because the very next thing to happen was a blue morpho butterfly landing on me! Twice! JJ was standing right there and I handed him my camera, but it was out of power and would not turn on. So SAD ;_;
There were also cool poison dart frogs and giant orb spiders that I could not photograph. In real life, the dart frogs are tiny! And colorful; being poisonous doesn't help unless your predator know it, after all.
Also, there was an almost complete and real blue whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling. I found it interesting that the whale has disconnected hip bones, and even hind knee bones, but they are entirely vestigial and don't connect to anything.
Anyway, after the museum, we went to dinner at The Stinking Rose, a restaurant which flavors its garlic with food. This is of course in keeping with the garlic theme of this vacation, and boy was it ever. They even had garlic ice cream, which was actually pretty good.
Now I am done typing up the report for the day, so I will go sleep. Laters!
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-22 09:34 pm (UTC)I actually quite like the fuzzy cherry blossom picture, it looks like a painting.
The Stinking Rose! I'm jealous +10, it's one of the coolest theme restaurants ever.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-24 03:58 am (UTC)Cameras' batteries have the best timing ever!!
I want to be shocked at the idea of garlic ice cream, but nope, nothing.