It's not strictly L.A., but it does involve navigating through traffic on the 101: Taking a day trip to the San Diego Zoo.
[Editor's Note: We hope you enjoy this guest post from Gothamist's Executive Editor, Jen Chung, who kindly put together this photo post for LAist readers while she was in town. Jen:I was dopey enough not to include my captions (bad Jen!) but they are up now!]
There are a number of animals to visit at the zoo. Will it be pandas? Or koalas? Perhaps a monkey?
The polar bears are great fun to see, because what are polar bears doing in Southern California? Here, one eats a yam.
Another bear was quite the showman, bouncing a ball....
...and later finding a bucket, proudly showing the zoo's visitors.
The giraffes happily roam, in search of some leaves to eat.
Koalas happily inhabit interior spaces, lounging on eucalyptus branches, having a splendid day.
And the best part of going to the San Diego Zoo would be the pandas, naturally. [We recommend that you go to the zoo early and that you hit the panda exhibit first, because by noon, the line gets very long.]
The San Diego Zoo has various animal cams that let you visit them from your desk. Check out the polar bear cam, elephant cam, ape cam and panda cam.
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That's awesome! I love the San Diego Zoo. Best zoo in America.
Someone's gotta ask it: Where are the panda shots?!?
This post illicits the same sigh as the Ford commercials last year in which then-Laker Rick Fox piles his now defunct family into an Explorer and heads down to the San Diego Zoo for the day. Kudos and props to the awesome SD Zoo for sure, but it was disappointing that Ford and the L.A.-based Fox couldn't drive a little love to the oft-overlooked L.A. Zoo instead. Es tu, LAist?
I know, John, and I've amended the situation.
As for the L.A. Zoo, I didn't have enough time to visit - no pandas, then no Jen. But really, Rick Fox should have been going to the L.A. Zoo. Shouldn't he represent? Unless Ford was appealing to some San Diego area dealers.
Wife and I headed down to the SD Zoo for a nice weekend day trip. First, just finding it takes 2 people watching out for the small signs. Parking is crap. The disign of the lot makes it so if you get there any time after dawn, you walk a half mile.
Next was the lines. It's just insane that people will stand in line with their shreiking, spitting little horrors, doing not-a-damn-thing but then comepletly shuit down when they get to the window. Its like they found an alien object. What, money? Oh, let me dig into my giant sack of crap to find my wallet that I didnt bother looking for in the hour I stood here with my thumb in my ass. The people in front of me, 4 of them in a group took no less than 20 minutes to understand that a weekday pass isnt good on sunday.
The tickets are stupid expensive. I know these exotic animals need good grub but this is insane. The only food inside is unhealthy crap. The Churro I bought was tepid and raw in the middle.
The whole place was wall to wall screaming kids who beat on the cage / glass of every animal they found. When the beating didnt work, they screamed or threw whatever they had in their grimy hands.
People that work there cant make more than min wage as they were all 17 and had shit attitudes. THe signs were crap and the whole layout is stupid and makes you hike like a friggin sherpa.
The SD Zoo sucks out loud. Its a complete waste of time unless you live down the street and have a few hundred to drop.
The hippo was kinda cool. Still not worth it.
Save your money and drive to Santa Barbara for the day and eat lunch at Brophys. Keep your brats at home.
LAist, we love you and everything, but this is the Los Angeles equivalent of that British guy Tina Brown once brought in to do Talk of the Town commissioning that piece on the tree at Rockefeller Center.
Koala bites man? Bring it on. Koala looks cute on eucalyptus branch? Yawn....