On Sunday the 8th September, in the morning, we were waiting at the Zoo before opening time, and once it opened we walked straight to the Polar Bear enclosure, on the opposite side of the park from the entrance - a 15min brisk walk. On the way, we were briefly distracted by the baby rhinocerous playing with mum in their pool. It's amazing to see them just float around - and they're not fish!

We were the first people at the Polar Bears, and as we had hoped they were very active - one eating and walking around and the other swimming around playing with a red plastic barrel. The bear pool is designed with one wall being plastic and on the other side of the plastic is the viewing area. The Polar Bear was right up against the plastic at times (less than 5cm from us) and it was incredible. Jo took heaps of photos!! We spent over half an hour watching them, mesmerised.

We walked back to the entrance past some of the other animals and saw some beautiful plants, and more interesting animals.

After the zoo we went up the coast to La Jolla (pronounced la hoy-ya) which is a beach suburb and University town. We watched sea lions on the rocks just metres away - they now stop people using the beach when the sea lions are around!

Nearby, at the Torrey Pines Glider Port, we watched a sea mist roll in across some huge cliffs which completely destroyed the view, but it was fascinating to see.

There was a life guard on a little platform at the top of the 50-100m shear cliffs watching out over the swimmers below; the platform stuck out over the edge and his umbrella had a big "Do Not Disturb" sign on it.

We wanted to be back in LA by 4.30pm for a "The Gospel according to the Simpsons" study, and so we went for a drive up a hill overlooking La Jolla and San Diego and Jo finished off our "film", so to speak.