The California Academy of Sciences is a place that everyone has been talking about as it only reopened this year after extensive renovation to the tune of $500 million (gasp!) and it is certainly impressive. It's located in Golden Gate Park opposite the de Young Museum and because we chose to go early on a weekday there were no queues so we just walked straight in with our CityPasses.

There was so much to see and do that it was hard to decide what to do first, so we went to the aquarium part first as it was nearest. We were worried there would be too many kids, but instead the place was swarming with OAPs, so we had to fight our way thru to get a good view of the fish.

As we exited the aquarium we saw people queuing up for the Morrison Planetarium, which is the largest all-digital planetarium in the world. It has a state-of-the-art projector and software technologies that produces the most accurate and interactive digital Universe ever created. So we queued up to get a timed pass, which means you come back at a certain time for the show. Our show was meant to be at 12.30pm but when we came back they were having problems with the projectors, but they said we'd only have to wait about 15 minutes so we hung around. However, after waiting almost an hour we gave up waiting, otherwise we wouldn't have had time to see everything else as the academy closes at 5pm.

So we went into the Rainforest dome which has a variety of different rainforest environments inside: the Amazonian Flooded Forest, the Borneo Forest Floor, the Madagascar Rainforest Understory and the Costa Rica Canopy. There was loads of different wildlife to look out for, some free to roam like the birds and butterflies and others kept in tanks and cages like the geckos and chameleons. I really enjoyed this place and was surprised that it wasn't more hot and humid after visiting similar domes at the Eden Project.

We then had lunch in the cafeteria and there were quite a lot of choices, from Chinese steamed buns to Mexican tacos. We shared a chicken curry with brown rice, which was really nice and so much better quality and value than the Exploratorium. We still felt a bit hungry though so we also shared a ginger rock cake and a chocolate torte, as they looked so appealing and they tasted as good as they looked.

After we were fed and watered we went to see the penguins just in time for their second feeding session of the day at 3.30pm. These were black-footed African Penguins and they were really cute and great to watch.

We went to see if the Planetarium Show was working but we'd just missed the last show which had already started. So we went to the Living-Roof, which covers the museum with 2.5 acres of 1.7 million native Californian plants and it looks just like Teletubbie land, but really it is a great example of architecture can be so environmentally friendly.

I highly recommend visiting the California Academy of Sciences as there's so much to see and do and it's really good value for money at $25 each if you don't have a CityPass. I would say that the aquarium here is much bigger and better than the Aquarium of the Bay.