Interactive, Educational and Fun!
On my recent mini-vacation, I visited the California Academy of Sciences museum on the grounds of the Golden Gate Park.
For those of you who have never been, there are actually a number of attractions in this area including the Botanical Gardens and a Japanese Tea Garden so you can easily make a day out of a trip here. We were about to visit the Gardens as well but it started to rain 
The museum featured exhibits such as the “Rainforests of the World” where you enter a ‘green house like bubble’ and proceed from Rainforest floor up the different levels of the forest. It was funny to think that here we were in the Rainforest but everyone was wearing their jackets! Eventually it became really warm in there and I wished I didn’t have my bulky jacket to carry.
Little birds and butterflies were free to fly around here. I tried to snap some photos of the lil ones during flight but they were way too fast. I did manage to get a photo of a butterfly when it landed though. Beautiful! We weren’t sure how much of the lush green forest we were surrounded with was plastic and how much of it was real. There were these two little poison dart frogs, that I later learned was plastic, that sat really high up on some leaves. Everyone, me included, took a few photos of these..but no one realized that the frogs weren’t even moving..haha
Another pretty cool exhibit was the Philippine Coral. My aunt thinks they stole the coral without permission, but I’m not sure if that’s true. There were a great deal of tropical fish swimming among the coral! It made me wish I was snorkeling with them!
What I really liked most about the California Academy of Sciences was the way the museum’s exhibits were set-up. There was an interactive section with insects, and most of the exhibits were next to each other, so you didn’t have to walk far to find something else interesting to look at.
On the roof of the museum, what they refer to as ‘the living roof’, there is a garden that will grow strawberries among other vegetation. That was a pretty unique sight.
There was a few things I didn’t like about the museum, such as the lack of space for the Penguins in the “Africa” exhibit. The area, which smelled musty, was filled with stuffed African animals, taxidermy galore. I also thought the snack area lacked tables and chairs. A number of people just gave up trying to find seats and sat on the ground. The eating area was spacious enough so I don’t see why they couldn’t add a few more tables.
At $25 per ticket, my advice is to pack a snack for yourself to eat to save some money, get there early to avoid the lineups and to find a parking spot! The museum garage and surrounding parking areas get full early.
In need of sustenance and looking for a chocolate fix, after getting our ’seahorse’ stamp (in case we wanted to come back later on), we headed to Citizen Cake, a popular bakery with some delicious desserts.
