all of us went to the chaminade for breakfast because i wanted my relatives to see the beauty of the area. there are two main views to see: mountains and beaches. tomorrow they will get the beach view. they really enjoyed the view, the serenity of the area, and the food. me, not so much for the food. i could pretty much only eat oatmeal and fruit.

then we went to the monterey bay aquarium because my grandmother has never been and she really wanted to see it. we walked around, left to eat lunch, then went back to see a few more things. when we were outside on the second floor, overlooking the monterey bay, we were lucky enough to see otters in the wild but you can hardly tell what it is in the photos that i took. eating with my relatives at regular omnivore restaurants, i'm realizing just how hard it is to be a vegan, but it is doable.

i used to go to the monterey bay aquarium once a year, each time someone visited. i got sick of it so i haven't been in a few years. there were a couple of exhibits that i had not seen before, which were the sharks and penguins. i was really looking forward to petting the bat rays but they would not come over to where humans were. i don't know if they were napping or were sick of having to put on a show for guests. there were only about 5-7 rays in the petting area and i recall that there used to be 2-3x that.

one of the aquarium tanks

it should come as no surprise that i think fish are interesting to watch

jellyfish are cool

check out that glow

looking up the jellyfish's skirt

take a ride on this guy

rays look like ocean vacuum cleaners

this one kept swimming by the tank windows so i think he wanted his picture taken

this shark wasn't shy about it--he swam right up, dropped, and posed for us, no kidding

i have no idea what the hell this zebra shark was doing but he was dedicated

postcard perfect penguins

these guys looked really bored

while at the aquarium, twiddle thumbs called me to tell me that the new fish have also eaten the algae fish! just when i was going to buy a divider so that he could clean one side of the tank, they killed him. *sniff*

about 1 hour after my relatives dropped me off in santa cruz, the other set of relatives arrived: my mother, her boyfriend, and my brother. we went to parwana for dinner because their food is yummy. then we went downtown to show them a health food store and the kind of things that are available. we bought various kinds of ice cream, regular and vegan, because my mom's boyfriend wanted some but we didn't eat any.