A city on fire

What is considered one of the most beautiful cities in the United States to live in - San Diego, has been burning these past couple of days. A series of no less than 10-15 major wildfires ignited the path all the way from LA to San Diego wreaking destruction in its path. If you don't know about this at all, click here - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=DVXA%2CDVXA%3A2005-22%2CDVXA%3Aen&q=san+diego+fires. It's surreal being part of a national emergency. Where the roads to the north, east and south are blocked because of all the fires and whats on the west is the ocean. Where you're asked to sit tight at home to await a reverse 911 call to make you evacuate. Where so many of your friends have evacuated and come to your houses in the hopes of avoiding another evacuation and where 10-15 of you are bundled up in a single home with all the important documents to leave at a moment's notice. Where the TV is tuned to CNN as you watch homes burn and yet the 15 of you play Pictionary, watch Mouna Raagam or do something to keep yourselves occupied with no work to report to. It may seem funny.. But everyone has their possessions to guard - be it new clothes (my new winter wardrobe in my case), the exclusive salwar kameez wardrobe, the ghagras or a few precious pictures. But when you see multimillion dollar homes burn down to the ground on TV (though insurance will cover a lot of it) and a parked Benz burn away, you can't help but feel sorry for every single person whose material losses exceed anything you've imagined. What I need to appreciate here is the precautious efficiency with which the evacuations were conducted so as to restrict the casualties to a bare minimum.. and that the animals were given shelter as well. The air's acrid but the spirits are up. In this case, the city, quite literally will rise from the ashes.

The San Diego Wild Animal Park

Thats just one of the many brilliant colors we saw at the San Diego wild animal park today.. It was a total day of funnnnnnn.. And its something that everyone HAS to do on a decent-length visit to SD. Sandy told me that the Wild Animal park was a lot more fun than the zoo and after the day I am guessing she was probably right... There were far more birds than animals on retrospect. The birds were all brilliantly colored and flew from far corners of the world. We sat through a bird show at an amphitheatre which was soo cute.. All these birds of prey swooping in from different places of the theatre was a sight to see.. they had everything from talking parrots to overgrown condors and it was such fun..

We also got to catch the elephant show where 'Cha cha' who almost danced Cha-cha-cha.. It was a pretty cool show as well. As for the wilderness, we got the majestic Lion, the king of the jungle in a habitat that I felt constrained them too much. They had an island kind of thing for 4 lions that was about 200 feet radius... A li'l small.. whereas for one lone boring white tiger they had yaaaaards of space. Hmph. I love tigers.. but this one was a little bit of the let-down. We felt most bad for the poor gorillas that looked bored out of their wits. Indeed Sandy and I were taking turns to make faces like the expressions those gorillas had which was basically staring into eternity and scratching their head probably wondering why the hell such similar looking creatures were gawking at them.

All in all, I must say that the park is sooooooo well planned... so well chalked out... tonnnnnnns of open space, natural habitats for allll the animals, loads of food places, restaurants, rest rooms and gift shops - a cool tram ride around the "African" region and a lotta more perks.. It was a lot of walking but it was worth every calorie burnt... So, if you are in San Diego, dont forget to invest a day in the Wild Animal Park... there's something for everyone out there. :)