We spent the weekend of the 13th and 14th of July in San Diego - the Zoo (or "The World Famous San Diego Zoo" as they call it) on Saturday was excellent - we are looking forward to the Wild Animal Park (by the same people) as there won't be cages. It's nice being summer as they're open till late at night and this helps us use the day to the maximum.

We bought membership to the Zoological Society because it was less expensive than tickets to the Zoo and the Wild Animal Park combined, plus we received some free guest passes and other discounts. And, we knew we'd be back with visitors!!

Highlights:

• Bus Tour. Excellent introduction to the zoo. 45min tour around the zoo - showed us the best bits, got us aquainted with the map and layout.
• Polar Bears. Playing in the pool with not a care in the world (see more in September).


• Panda Bears. They have a Panda Bear breeding programme which is one of the best in the world. The Panda Bears were beautiful, the lines to see them were huge, and we had to be quiet whilst viewing them.


• Shows. There are two ampitheatres at the zoo and we stayed for the 8.30pm show which featured excellent acrobats, reminiscent of Circus de Sol - with trapeeze, people hanging from poles, performing acrobatics from long pieces of cloth hanging from the roof.

We discovered something interesting about food names. Being a hot day we were looking forward to an icecream (chocolate coated and on a stick) and after not seeing any being sold we discovered that they are called "Icecream Novelties".