22 September 2010

Trip Day 6 — San Francisco Day 2 – Exploring Museums

Posted by BaBa under: Travel .

Today, we experienced great hospitality when the Hotel Manager drove us in his personal car to the CalTrain station. There are no cabs running because they are all in San Francisco with Oracle Convention. He did not have to drive us, but we were glad to get the lift and will be writing a letter to the corporate headquarters about his exceptional service.

Our day was planned to see the Science Museum at Golden Gate Park and we will follow this up with the Exploritorium. To do this we had to manage two bus changes as we went into town and then across town.

We did this without real difficulty. We arrived at the Science Museum and Magoo was ready to see and do. We started with the mammals and then went to the children’s play area.

He really enjoyed the children’s play area where there was a farm scene and a ship. He does enjoy this kind of free play. We sat with him and watched and interacted with him when he brought us muffins or juice. The iPhone photos from below are from this play area.

We then went to the rainforest in a big dome. We started at the bottom and looked at the exhibits while also watching for free flying birds and butterflies. He really enjoyed this and then we descended into the aquarium section in the basement of the museum. They have a really nice museum and we have been there before on one of our previous San Francisco trips. We thought Magoo would enjoy it and we were indeed right.

They had a display on saving the environment and they had paper for you to leave your message about the environment. Magoo wrote “Keep our planet clean and not pollute.” He is very much into reduce, reuse and recycle. Thus he had a strong connection to this display. We saw a film on a working solar cooker that is being used in India. Using this saves 20KG of wood fuel a day. The entrepreneur who is doing this is using his own money mad from a technology startup to give the cookers away to those who need them. It was fascinating.

I took a few pictures in the children’s area. We then journeyed by bus (two more transfers) to the Pacific Palisades complex (I think that is correct) where the Exploritorium is located. Magoo was hungry as again we were traveling fast and running on light food. However, when he saw the interactive exhibits, he made the choice to investigate instead of eat. I went with him while the MaMa sat and rested. We spent 2 1/2 hours exploring all of the hands on exhibits together. We had a great time and closed the place down (meaning we left right at closing time). We then made two more bus transfers and got the #30 going through ChinaTown and onto the CalTrain station. We had a very full day in San Francisco and were tired. We could not wait to get back to the hotel after the train ride and then a cab ride.

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