CLZ Goes to the California Academy of Sciences
Posted by James Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:02:00 GMT
Today, taking a break from the credit crunch madness, we paid a visit to the newly opened California Academy of Sciences. The admission is free every third Wednesday of the month and since we are starving entrepreneurs, we jumped at the opportunity.
When we finally arrived at Golden Gate Park we were greeted by a huge mass of people. The new Academy building is next to the De Young Museum and the line snaked all the way to its neighbor. We got lucky as some of our friends were already in line. So we cut in line. Fortunately, the people around us were rather gracious.
The museum was quite crowded and the tickets to the planetarium were already exhausted. So we spent most of our time in the aquarium in the lower level. We saw a few very cool things.
First, there was this albino alligator. I have never seen an albino alligator before, didn’t even know they existed. I guess they must live in very clean swamps, otherwise he would stick out like a thorn. He (I’m guessing it’s a male) lives in the swamp pit with a regular looking alligator and two giant turtles. I guess he was really tired today, he didn’t move very much.
Then there’s this giant sea bass. You can’t tell from the photograph but its head was about the size of mine. Now this fish isn’t exactly pretty, but I think I got the optimum angle for the portrait. It was swimming around pretty fast in the tank. I think it was looking for something.
Next to the sea bass, was a very dark tank. At first, I didn’t see anything. Then I saw it in the very bottom corner. A huge octopus! Yep and it was moving along the glass portion of the tank so we all got a good view of the suction cups on its tentacles. I was afraid the picture wouldn’t turn out, but I was pleasantly surprised.
At the same time there was this show where a scuba diver in the tank was talking with the audience. The lecture was on biodiversity in the ocean. I couldn’t get very close as you can see, the place was pretty packed.
After lunch at the museum cafe, which was surprisingly good (probably because we were starving at this point), we visited the Living Roof of the building. This building has the largest living roof in the world. The roof is completely covered in vegetation and they act to cool the building. Also the roof contains enough solar panels to provide up to 10% of the building’s energy needs.
All together, we had a lot of fun. It’s been awhile since all of CLZ went out and did an activity together, and since the October weather in San Francisco is absolutely gorgeous, it was a trip well worth the time.