Into The San Diego Wild :)

You may wonder why there is a smile :) symbol after the title. It is because it is not uncommon for me to get comments similar to the two below:

"I was in San Diego, but did not see those at all."
- I guess, it depends on which part of San Diego one focused their travel. Of course, if the focus was the "city", despite all the abundance of nature in and around San Diego, one may not be able to see them because they are not in downtown streets. 

"You always take vacation. I do not have much time to get away as much as you do."

-  One of my professors before told us, "San Diego is one of the most expensive places to live, you could get a place for 1/10th of the price and 10times the size somewhere else. However, if you enjoy a balance of great outdoors and the city, this is your city. You don't need to take a vacation, for everyday is like a vacation. Considering vacation expenses, the price you are paying for to live in San Diego is not that expensive after all."  :)

Oftentimes, we are being mistaken to have a lifestyle that always take vacation. To quote a friend while I toured her around San Diego, she said, "Goodness, Betchai, I did not know these are all just within San Diego and minutes from your home. I thought all the while, every weekend, you take a vacation. Haaayst! Please pray I can find a job, HERE!"

Anyway, let me share with you first a picture collage which somehow summarizes what is around San Diego.

If we focus our activities on the city part of San Diego alone, then probably our weekend is common to others. Staying at home watching TV or computer games or any at-home activities, shopping or malling, watching movies, doing all household chores, etc. We sacrifice shopping, watching TV or movies and we do our household chores on weekdays after work to free our weekends. Cleaning the house and doing laundry does not always have to wait for weekends. We do what we could do now so we are not overloaded tomorrow. And so we would have more time for a more energizing and rejuvenating rest and relaxation on weekends. As I have shared before, it is our outdoor wanderings and nature therapy on weekends that give us so much energy to go back to work with renewed passion and energy, and to continue working at home ( cooking, laundry, cleaning, etc) after work on weekdays. 

The title of this post is inspired from the video I made from our weekend wanderings here in San Diego, which focuses more on the wildlife (both underwater and terrestrial), rather than the scenery. I titled the video, "Into The San Diego Wild", inspired from another video I made a while back, "Into The Pacific Wild."

** the leopard sharks in this video are very harmless to humans, there are several sharks species such as leopard sharks that have very tiny mouth and feeds only on very tiny sea creatures**

Anyway, if in case you have no time to watch the video above, here are some of my favorite "into the San Diego wild" experiences:

The Underwater Wild

Tidepooling and the Dolphins ( could you see the little fish underneath the dolphins?)

Birding in Lake Hodges 

( where I learned lessons from coopers hawk's life in the dangerous lane )

Birding Along the Coast

"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit." - Edward Abbey

♥♥