Another fun thing that Christi did one day while Eric was at work was to go to the California Academy of Sciences and Japanese Tea Garden, both located in Golden Gate Park (the park is located close to the northwest tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, not far from the Golden Gate Bridge). Christi and her friend Kim took public transit from the ballpark over to the park, enjoying the pretty views along the way. San Francisco is visually an attractive city.

The California Academy of Sciences is actually several museums all rolled into one facility. The ticket to get in was $30, which is pretty expensive for a museum, but once inside, she saw why it was so much. There is a lot to do there, and a lot of staff on hand to answer questions and offer help.

Upon arrival, Christi and Kim made a beeline for the world’s largest all digital Planetarium to catch the show “Life: A Cosmic Story” narrated by Jodie Foster. It was a surprisingly interesting history of the universe, illustrating how microbiology and astronomy are inter-connected in the great scale of the universe. (In a weird coincidence, the night before, Christi watched the movie “Contact” for the first time. “Contact” stars Jodie Foster, who played an astronomer who found life on another galaxy.)

In the middle of the museum building is a 90 foot diameter (27.5 meter) glass dome that houses a tropical forest. A walkway circles the interior of the dome, climbing higher and higher, allowing people to look at the various plants and animals along the way. We didn’t see many animals at the bottom, but near the top we saw a couple birds and a few butterflies.

Kim loved it. Christi though the concept was cool, but wasn’t super impressed with the exhibit in general. Christi thinks she spent too much time in real tropical rain forests (such as Australia, Panama and Costa Rica) to appreciate a tiny tropical simulation. (On another side note, Kim’s husband, Mike, was with Christi and Eric in Costa Rica on the wilderness hike we linked to above).

At the top of a dome, an elevator takes people down to ground level and lets them out in the aquarium. Eric and Christi have been to a lot of aquariums over the last few years (including Atlanta, Georgia, Monaco, Panama, Crete, Greece, and San Diego, among others) and while the San Francisco aquarium is not the best we’ve seen, this one certainly rates fairly well. It had a swamp exhibit, coral reef exhibit, Amazon Forest exhibit, a Northern California Coast Exhibit, and a tide pool, where the staff encouraged Christi and Kim to touch all the specimens.

By far the most interesting attraction in the aquarium was the white alligator in the swamp exhibit. Christi had never heard of white alligators before and was fascinated by it.

Another interesting specimen was a paddlefish, the largest freshwater fish in North America. They commonly reach 5 feet (1.5 m) or more in length and can weigh more than 60 pounds (27 kg). Though fish that feed on plankton, they resemble sharks a little bit, but their nose is shaped like a paddle! Sadly, Christi didn’t get a decent photo of one, but you can see some swimming around in this youtube video. There were a few more species that were unfamiliar to Christi, particularly in the swamp exhibit, but she didn’t take notes and can’t remember them anymore.

Most of the species were familiar, though, especially in the tropical displays. Christi loves tropical water exhibits and spent a long time looking at them, remembering seeing the various creatures on dives we did around the world and dreaming of going diving in the tropics again.

From there, Christi and Kim headed over to the Japanese Tea Garden. The entrance fee was about $7.00. The garden was absolutely gorgeous, a work of art in and of itself. Here are some pictures

This is part 6 of an 11 part series on our time in the San Francisco area. Read Part 5 here and part 7 here.