The Sapphire City -- (Sea) Lions, Tiger (Sharks), and (Polar) Bears! Oh My!

Previously, on Rags to Riches...


...our adventure left off after a tiring day in Hollywood, complete with sunset on the beach and a trendy dinner. The next day, we drove down to the promised land of San Diego, taking the longer way of driving down the coastal highway, Route 1, aka the PCH, so we could see the various beach towns. We stopped briefly in Huntington Beach and walked out onto the beach. On the way, we passed this wonderful bougainvillea bush (very prevalent in the OC) and John took my picture in front of it.





One thing John had especially requested was a stop at In N Out Burger. For those of you not familiar with it, In N Out is a fast-food chain only found in CA, AZ, and NV. They have great burgers made from quality ingredients, for extremely cheap, with friendly, efficient service.

So, I unfortunately did not travel back to the 1950's this weekend ala Pleasantville. :-( But we did enjoy watching the staff of In N Out do their thing in their little paper hats. One guy was in charge of putting big, fresh potatoes in the slicer and making french fries out of them, so we watched that as we waited for our food.

John and I taking the first delicious bites of our burgers.


So then we continued our drive to San Diego, and by the time we got there, we were pretty exhausted.

But, we were also excited about our destination: Sea World San Diego!! And those of you who know how wild I am about marine animals will know how excited I was when John said he wanted to go to Sea World. I hadn't been to this one, only to the one in Orlando, and that had been a long time ago.

So, happy to get a AAA discount on the tickets, we headed for the dolphin tanks. They had an area where people could feed the dolphins, and though we did not partake in that, we headed over to where it was going on so we got great views of the dolphins. As you can see, they came right up to the glass and stayed there for a while, making for some great photos. I was happy as a clam!

Then we headed to the sea otter tank where my nature photography left much to be desired. :-) But I caught a few good ones. Here is the otter diving underwater.

And here he is eating something on the top of the water.

By the way, if you haven't seen this video yet and want to add some cuteness to your day, you must check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUk3T2Kfno (to clarify, this is not a video that I took.)

Then we made our way to the dolphin stadium for the dolphin show.

It was a lot of fun, from the opening song complete with hand gestures telling people to move higher if they didn't want to get soaked ("if you want to stay drier, move a little higher!") to the fake mom they used to trick us.

Basically, they started out the show introducing us to a family with mom, dad, and their son. They had volunteered to help with the dolphins during the show. Well, the mom helped hold a rope really high for a dolphin to jump over (see photo below) and on the way down, slipped and tripped into the glass wall. Everyone had a good laugh over that and felt very embarassed for her. Then later, she was poised on the rock bridge to take a photo of her son with the dolphins and fell over into the water! Everyone was shocked and "oh my gosh"es and nervous giggles spread through the auditorium as the staff instructed her to stay calm and swim towards the wall. Well, next thing you know, she is grabbing a dolphin's fin as it swims by and taking a ride around the pool! Of course, it was a staff member all along and they had tricked us into thinking she was the boy's mother. I have to say, they did a very convincing job!

This is a closer-up photo where you can see the dolphin, rope, and previously referenced rock bridge.Next, we went to the bat rays. The people next to us were feeding them, so we got to reach down and touch them. They felt like velvet! For you safety-conscious folks, they had removed the stingers from the rays, so we were in no danger. I would say the only danger came from the birds who would swoop down and grab the fish used to feed the rays right out of people's hands. We saw this with the sea lions as well.



Speaking of sea lions, we headed to that exhibit next. Here is John looking suspiciously serene.

Then he sees his chance and opens up to swallow the unsuspecting sea lion!

The sea lion behind me had camped out on that rock and wouldn't let any of the others get onto it.

As we were walking around, we saw this little area of greenery with a sign that said "Fuji Photo Spot". I thought it was funny that the Photo Spot would be in this fake area with flowers instead of say, in front of some marine life! So we took our photo there and tried to get the sign in the background.

Then it was time for the Shamu show! Now this was no regular Shamu show with standard whale tricks -- this was the heartfelt Shamu: Believe show! This was all about appreciating the ocean and the creatures in it, and also about following your heart to become what you want to be. In this case, we followed the story of a young boy who dreamed of working with whales when he grew up. It was HILARIOUS! (Truth be told, it was well-done, but very cheesy.)

We couldn't stop laughing at this one part of the video they showed. You see this young boy, about 12 years old, looking over photos of whales in a book, tracing them with his fingers with inspirational music in the background. This is mixed in with shots of killer whales diving in the ocean just off shore from where the boy lives. The narrator says something along the lines of "have you ever had a defining moment that tells you what you want to do with the rest of your life?" And at this point, the movie cuts to a shot of the boy whittling a piece of wood into a sharp point! We totally cracked up at that. The movie went on to show the piece of wood becoming a pendant in the shape of a whale's tail that the boy wore around his neck, but it seriously looked like he was obsessed with whales and was going to spend his life hunting them!

Of course, the boy in the movie grows up and becomes one of the whale trainers there in the stadium (which the audience knows because the trainer is wearing that same whale tail necklace). I must say, the best part of the show for me (besides the good laugh I had from the Moby Dick-esque moment) was when the whale popped way up out of the water with the trainer on his nose.


After the show, we walked over to see a closer view of one of Shamu's friends. This was in "Shamu's Private Pool". No kidding! They showed a little ad for having dinner by Shamu's Private Pool. We just imagined Shamu with a towel around his waist, chilling with the ladies in his private pool. :-)

I was very excited!

Blogger is testing out a new way to embed your videos, so I'm trying this one. Let me know if you have any problems viewing it.




We stopped briefly at the flamingo island, which reminded me of my favorite word, ubiquitous. Why, you ask? The way I learned ubiquitous was from an SAT lesson featuring the sentence fragment "ubiquitous pink flamingos", referring to the plastic lawn ornaments. It has stuck with me every since. We saw some of the flamingos throw down and get into a nasty-sounding fight. This was their nesting area, if you can see all the mounds that the flamingos are sitting on. We even saw some eggs.

From pink flamingos, we entered the cold and frightful arctic!! Due to time constraints, we had to skip the simulation part of the exhibit where you take a helicopter ride into the arctic. From the decor of the exhibit, it looks like you are supposed to be on a scientific expedition. It was really cool how they had set up the exhibit. My favorite part was this little place they had made into an ice cave where you could crawl in and around some nooks and crannys. All the while, they had piped in sounds of a polar bear growling in your ear. It was actually a little frightening! We saw some Beluga whales and a real live polar bear. When we exited (through the gift shop of course), we were confronted with this beast. So of course, we had to take pictures.

It was a close call, but we did make it out alive! (I bet you were wondering!)

Next up was the shark tank!

Here I am underwater with the sharks!



Okay, not really, but it sure does look like it, doesn't it? There was a glass tunnel where you went underneath the sharks on a moving conveyor belt. It was awesome.



Our final stop in Sea World was the 4-D movie, Haunted Lighthouse. A 4-D movie is one in which you wear 3-D glasses and sit in seats with speakers, air hoses, and water sprinklers. So the 4th dimension is touch. This was possibly the worst movie I have seen in terms of script, but I guess I shouldn't have set my expectations too high. But it did star Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson from Back to the Future (there were even a few references in it to that movie) and it was cute enough for what it was. At the beginning of the movie, an announcement warns you that there is a very good chance that you will get wet. Throughout the movie, we got sprayed a couple times, but it was hardly anything. By the end of the movie, we thought we had made it out pretty well. But then, in the last scene (hope I'm not ruining this for any of you who might have it on your Netflix list), a huge burst of water rained down on us from sprinklers in the ceiling and got us pretty wet. It was pretty funny.

We stopped by the sea lions one last time on the way out, and I must say, they had the right idea!

Well, there ends our exciting journey. Thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you next time!