California State Fair

Every year at Cal Exp in Sacramento the California State Fair is held. It usually lasts about two weeks and has rides, beautiful animals, great food, cultural exhibits, shopping, and music. The fair is a fantastic way to get out and enjoy the summer with friends. I really loved all of the exotic birds at the fair. They were all so beautiful. 

 



 One of my favorite birds that I saw. It was awesome to be able to hold the bird; it was trying to bite my fingers and then climb my arm and bite my ear.

 This year four rides from Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch were brought to the fair. This was one of those rides.

 

 Chocolate dipped banana. So delicous!

 Turkey legs! I have never had a whole turkey leg like this and it was amazing! I had two in one day because I could not get enough. While this was really good some of the other food sounded much less...appealing. They have things such as deep-fried grilled cheese or deep-fried poptarts

 

San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival/桜祭り

 

Only have a couple of pictures here. I went to the Cherry Blossom Festival in San Francisco with some of my friends. There were Taiko drumming and karate demonstrations. There were even Nihon Buyo demonstrations! It was all so fascinating to see and it was so beautiful. The festival takes place in April of every year and I am so excited for the next one! There were street vendors and demonstrations everywhere.



 

 

 

 One really cool thing was Pika Pika. There are a bunch of photo booths that you can go into and take pictures and then edit. The strips above are a few of the pictures we got. The booth we were in was awesome! It had a bar across the top that I hung upside down from.

 

San Francisco-Chinatown and Zoo Visit

I had Saturday off this week(something that almost never happens) and I thought I should do something fun. So I decided to take a drive down to San Francisco with the hopes of going to Chinatown, the Zoo, Japantown, and a beautiful Japanese Tea Garden. Well it didn't all work out as planned, I spent a little bit too much time in Chinatown and the Zoo so I couldn't go by Japantown or the Tea Garden which was my main reason for going to San Francisco. Next time! Anyways after trying to find parking for about 30 minutes I worked my way into Chinatown. I haven't ever seen all of Chinatown so I spent time going in most of the stores which was very fun. 

 All of the little baked goods in this shop looked so good!I wish I could have eaten some but I doubt any were gluten free so I decided not to chance it.

 A beautiful little store with a bunch of very nice things inside.

A local kung fu dojo was out in a parade like thing that was really cool! There were several people walking around in dragons and there was drumming and fireworks. The whole thing happened so fast and everyone ran over to see it.

From Chinatown I headed over to the San Francisco Zoo which was about a 30 minute drive. The area around the zoo was very different, it was much more suburban than the rest of San Francisco. Parking was free for the zoo, something I was really happy about and it only cost $15 to get in. The first thing I noticed is that the zoo was HUGE! At least it is much bigger than the one in Sacramento.

There were so many cool animals in the zoo, my favorite were probably the Aye-Ayes. Aye-Ayes are a nocturnal lemur that lives only in Madagascar. San Francisco is one of only four zoo's in the US that has these lemurs. To see them I had to go into an almost pitch black building where they were.

After your eyes got used to the darkness you could see four little Aye-Ayes darting around in their room. It was incredible to see them because it is such a uncommon and somewhat bizarre animal.  

 Rafiki from the Lion King!

 Spider monkeys. I sat infront of them for about five minutes and this little guy never stopped sprinting everywhere.