on friday while at work we made last minute plans to go to san diego for most of the holiday weekend to take advantage of coupons and the last days of summer festivities. i know we need to save money for japan next month (already!) but we didn't really go anywhere this summer and needed the breath of fresh air. also, it was a great opportunity for me to test out the comfortability of my new vegan shoes! we left this morning later than i would have liked to but i figure that there isn't that much at sea world to see so we'll be ok. the only issue is that it is summer and it is a holiday weekend so there will be a crowd so it will take a long time to see things. instead of going early and leaving early, i knew that by going late we would probably stay until close and that's pretty much what happened.

sleepy time for polar bear

we ate some breakfast and made lunch, then drove down to san diego. we got to sea world and had to park way in the back where it's just dirt and not paved. the good thing about arriving late was that they weren't charging for parking anymore so we saved $10 right there. then we went to the front and got in line for tickets. we held out our coupon from subway and the party behind us asked about it. we explained that it saves $8 off per person and is good for 2 people. the party behind us was 6 people. they asked to buy the coupon off of us for $16 so that way we would still get in the park cheaper by the same amount and their party would be able to save money as well. we said yes as it's a win-win situation. then we heard the party in front of us get a discount for showing their AAA card. since we didn't have a coupon anymore, i decided to ask for the AAA discount and showed my card. damn! the AAA discount is better than the coupon! $10 off per person. so in total we saved $18 per person and parking! we were off to a great start!

we put our stuff in some lockers at the front, ate the lunch we made, then went into the park. somewhere down the line our communications failed and i ended up walking around all day without any sunblock. i thought the sunblock was going to be taken with us into the park, but it was left in the car. oh well. perhaps this will help me to lose my driver's arm tan but instead the contrast became more noticeable as during our day in the park my left arm was in the sun more and my right arm in the shade more. i suppose that was the downside of saving money off admission but my face didn't burn so that's great! (everyone should wear hats with a wide brim--they work!)

killer belly flop

even though we got there late, we were able to watch most of the shows: clyde and seamore's risky rescue, cirque de la mer, believe (shamu), dolphin discovery, sea lions tonite (summer nights only, parody show of the other shows), and shamu's house of douse (summer nights only). we didn't see that many attractions: wild arctic, manatee rescue, freshwater aquarium (we were in and out as it was too hot and overcrowded), and the puffins family exhibit which most people probably didn't notice as it was on the side of the closed penguin encounter. at the beginning of the shamu show was a very awkward moment for me when they took time out to pay respects to the troops fighting in iraq. they asked for military members in the audience to stand up. if you didn't loudly applaud and cheer for them, it felt like someone would haul you away and question your allegiance. 'have you now or ever been a member of the communist party?' i'm being over-dramatic but it was very awkward and i felt it was inappropriate to do so in the middle of what is just supposed to be (for most people) a day of fun and games with the kids, especially because these kind of places have many foreign guests. it seems too much a nationalistic/xenophobic thing in a country where i thought such things were inappropriate (at least we shun this when other countries do this or only countries on the 'bad list'.)

overall impression: this place was fun as a kid to go to but as an adult i am not wow-ed. i thought this would be the case even before going. it's just been so long since i've been that i needed to go as an adult to see what it's like now that i'm older. i don't think i need to go again.