Although there was an organized activity for the group on Sunday, I decided to skip it because I just felt like having a day of making my own activity plans. Most of the people in the group went to the activity, and the few that stayed back went to lab. However, one of the other scholars said he'd come on the adventures with me when I told him my plans, so Sunday afternoon was a CRAZY adventure. With lots of photos, so apologies in advance for this incredibly long post!
Ever since I discovered the Berkeley webcam from the Lawrence Hall of Science and saw pictures of the museum itself, I've been wanting to go see it. When I got here, I also found out that the UC Berkeley Botanic Gardens is beautiful, so I've also wanted to go see that. Turns out they're right down the street from each other, so Sunday's plans were the gardens and the museum. It was a wonderful trip and so worth it, despite the fact that both of these locations are up in the nearby hills, the busses don't run on weekends, and we had to walk for an hour just to get up to both places. Despite the fact that I can no longer feel most of my legs because I'm so sore, I am still so glad I finally went and explored these places.
The botanic gardens are 34ish acres of plants from around the world. It's so great that CA has the climate to maintain all of these plants! My other favorite botanic garden in DC is mostly indoors, and for good reason, now that I think of it - those plants probably wouldn't survive a winter! Now that I've been to the Berkeley ones, I have a new favorite Botanic Garden - it's absolutely beautiful. I didn't even get to see all of it because it's so huge, but I would go back in a heartbeat and keep exploring everything. I've included here many highlights of the trip.
We first saw cactus. They have lots potted indoors, too many to ever dream of taking a picture individually of all of them. There is such a great diversity of cactus! Some are prickly, some are (or appear to be) fuzzy, some flower, some look like rocks, and they all grow in different funky shapes and sizes! Oh, the wonders of the plant kingdom.
Next come the carnivorous plants. They had all sorts, from typical pitcher plants to ones which they put specifically to show a type of trap (passive or active trap). They were all SO COOL, and I was excited because carnivorous plants are one of my favorite types of plant. I was upset though because they were all inside of a glass case, and crazy me likes to stick her finger (or sticks) inside of them to observe the carnivorous mechanisms. I know it's awful and stresses the plant, but I am kind of insane...
Outside, the cactus continue in a desert area! There were lots of cactus here which I have no photos of, but the one to the left was the most memorable, mostly because of how ridiculously tall it is. Also in the desert was the above sign warning the passerby to watch out for newts, which I got REALLY excited about because newts are of course cute, and I love cute animals. Unfortunately, we did not see any passing newts :(.
In the Asia area, we came across a beautiful pond. There was also a sign here informing us that there were newts and things in the pond, but despite my hard search, all I saw were water bugs.
The next bunch of photos are a combination of Asia, Australasia, the Mediterranean, and South America. I quite honestly have no idea which ones are which. But we passed through all of them!
Just like the appearance of earthquake warnings everywhere, another west coast thing I'm getting used to is the fact that there are HUMMINGBIRDS out here! I don't think I'd ever seen one before this summer, despite having been to the west coast many times (or perhaps I've seen them and just don't remember?). Regardless, they seem to be pretty numerous around here, and they're so beautiful.
And of course, since we're up in the hills, there is as usual a drop dead gorgeous view of the SF Bay and Golden Gate Bridge.
We then came to the Garden of Roses. I am a bad scientist/botanist and have absolutely no clue what these plants are specifically, just that they're roses. I'm bad and tend to be more of a "just take photos of everything that looks pretty without regard to what it is" type person, oops...
The sign in the photo informs me that the next bunch are most likely in the Mediterranean section!
After these sections, we came to the World Crops! I have tons more pictures than I've put here of vegetables or general other edible things that I love. I've just included a few here which I thought were fun for whatever reason. It was awesome to see all of these things growing in one place, and not just things that I'd heard of, but truly crops of the world.
I thought this plant was funny because I didn't know there was a plant which just had the common name "tea"!!!
And I thought this one just had an outright funny name, so I had to include it.
My favorite bubble tea flavor!
The next set is in the Chinese Medicinal Herb / normal herb garden. It was fun reading all of the crazy plants especially in the Chinese garden and all of the crazy things they could apparently cure! And yes, sunflowers were included as an herb.
I found a sundial. Apparently it actually really does tell you the time!
Wormwood - LIKE I'VE ONLY HEARD OF IN HARRY POTTER.
I've always thought prickly pears just sound funny and cool :)
Inside the tropical plant house, there's a cocoa tree! This one only has one pod on it right now, just like in that episode of The Magic School Bus when Mrs Frizzle's cocoa tree isn't growing any pods! This one is healthy though and sprouting new ones (green), in addition to the one huge brown pod which will probably fall off soon.
The left plant below is a lobster claw (so pretty!), and the one on the right is that crazy tree which has a stem which is actually one giant petal that only blooms every 20 or so years, and smells so awful that people come just to see how bad it smells. It is very clearly not in bloom right now, but you can see a picture of what it looks like on the sign in the pot.
After not even thoroughly exploring the Botanic Gardens, we headed up the remainder of the ridiculously steep hill to the Lawrence Hall of Science. Unless you are a superhuman, or just ridiculously in shape, do not attempt this. Yes, I know it was absolutely worth it, but that doesn't change the fact that I still can't feel my legs. Plus, I don't think it was intended to be walked to from the Botanic Gardens (there is a path up the hill from Berkeley to the gardens, but not one from the gardens to the Hall of Science. They KNEW it would be too hard to walk up).
This is the plaza to the right of the above building, right when you get over the last part of the hill onto flat, finally. I can't even describe how it feels to be greeted with this gorgeous architecture and general view (especially after the painful trek up the hill). My breath was taken away just as it had been in Muir Woods. I still can't believe Berkeley has such amazing facilities like this.
THEY HAVE A GIANT DNA STATUE IN THE PLAZA. I WAS IN BIOLOGY NERD HEAVEN. WHY DON'T I GO TO A SCHOOL THIS AWESOME?
They also have a giant statue of a whale. Again. Really, for a school with such a great marine science program, why don't we have one of these?? I clearly had a very good time climbing on top of every statue in the plaza.
Oh, the beautiful view. I'm not even going to attempt to say anything about this. It speaks for itself. And this is why the trek up the hill was so worth it.
Hey look, it's Berkeley! Hi, Berkeley!
The next set of images shows all of the different things you can see in your view. Simply amazing.
So I'm pretty sure that the Lawrence Hall of Science is mainly a kids museum. But, since I am still 5 at heart, I was not stopped from playing with everything in sight that wasn't occupied by a real child. For example, those pin boards you're not supposed to stick your face in but do anyway. That's me with my face-print!!!!!!!!!
The current I believe main exhibit is an exhibit on skateboards based on Tony Hawk, who did a demonstration there earlier this month. The whole exhibit was essentially dedicated to the physics of skateboarding. Very cool to see it put into play in real life, but still doesn't change that I very much dislike physics.
Outside in the back, there is a really neat exhibit on how the San Francisco Bay area came to be as a result of all the earthquakes and tectonic activity in the area. There were also numerous interactive demonstrations that all were out of order, as well as piles of dirt and shovels. Not sure what those were for, but all the children were playing with them.
Me with the view :).
Back inside, they had what was probably my favorite exhibit. A giant globe, it could be programmed from a computer at the base with so many different projections that included current day night, cloud cover, satellite cover, history of earthquakes, and so many more! It can just put into perspective so many different things about our planet. Shown here are Facebook friendships, scale model of our solar system, and flight paths.
Downstairs were more things essentially specifically for kids. In the Ingenuity Lab, kids could build lots of different things. We didn't go in because I didn't want to seem out of place amongst all the children. And then along came the Animal Room down the hall...oh, no. All four walls were lined with tanks containing mostly reptiles or insects, most of which (besides the insects) I find cool anyway. And then off in one corner were several cages of bunnies.... naturally, I went ballistic over the overload of cuteness in one place. And it gets better. In the middle of the room you had an opportunity to pet or HOLD an animal which was out I guess for learning purposes. This animal that they had out also happens to be on my list of top five cutest animals. Now, I established this list when I was a child and have kind of held to it as the top five cutest animals. However, we all know me and my love for fluffy things, so this list is most certainly incomplete and does not include animals which are very clearly some of the cutest. Like seals/sea otters/etc. Maybe I should include a general pinniped group as the sixth cutest.... and I don't know how kittens and puppies aren't on the list. ANYWAY.
...
LOOK I'M HOLDING A CHINCHILLA AND I'VE NEVER HELD ONE BEFORE AND THEY'RE SO SOFT AND FLUFFY AND CUTE AND SOFT AND FLUFFY AND SO FRIENDLY AND I HELD MY FIRST CHINCHILLA AND I TOLD IT HOW MUCH I LOVED IT AND HOW I WILL ALWAYS LOVE IT AND IT'S THE CUTEST CHINCHILLA I'VE EVER SEEN AND HOW I LOVE IT SO SO SO SO SO MUCH AND HOW IT'S SO WONDERFULLY FLUFFY AND BEAUTIFUL AND HOW I LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE IT AND I NEVER WANTED TO LET IT GO.
For those of you still reading if you're not convinced that I'm absolutely insane, we then saw (molds, unfortunately) of some prehistoric beasts (though they did have a real triceratops skull, not pictured here!).
And when we left, I realized I'd only sat on the DNA, not in the DNA, so here's me sitting in the DNA!
Also, while at the Hall of Science, I bought this shirt. I LOVE BEING A NERD.
After the adventures, I came back home and sprawled around for a little while before going out again to meet with some friends from Boston who recently moved out here for grad school starting in the fall. It was great to see them and spend time together and chat! I love all my Berkeley Scholars, but it really is nice to see old friends who happen to be in the area (I'm surprised how many there are here!). Anyway. With my friends I tried a new Chinese restaurant as well as a new gelato place, Gelateria Naia! It was actually really fun to be able to explain to them the ice cream/gelato trend here of natural ingredients, crazy flavors, and flavors (regardless of craziness) that actually taste like their name and how every ice cream place can pull that off! They were so confused over flavors like cardamom and roasted corn! I got cardamom (as well as Ferraro Rocher and hazelnut), my friends got cardamom, roasted corn, a whiskey one, and one other that I can't remember - a chocolatey nut one, I think. I LOVED the cardamom and was so glad I got it because thus far here I somehow haven't gotten any of the weird spice ice cream flavors. I need to start now, because they really are unique here and all SO GOOD. I tried a bit of the corn one, and it actually tasted like corn. But in ice cream!!! I love how I feel like a native to the area now because it's so natural to me to see all these wacky flavors and embrace them, but my friends who have been out east for so long think it's so weird, reluctantly try it (or try it "because we can!!!!", but really, where else will you get stuff like this!!!!), and then love it!
In other news, I'm a bad Pixar fan because I still haven't seen Brave, and it's already been out for a few days! Hopefully sometime this week. In other other news, I broke my two week or so streak of not having King Pin and have had it twice in the past few days. Haven't been to CREAM in even longer though. That's a problem. So, hopefully this week will be a lot more fun with more than the usual boring update!!!!!
