New Children's Museum and Balboa Park

We were debating what to do on our last day in San Diego: Legoland (expensive, even with some online discounts we found), water park (too cold), beach (idem). In the end we chose a kids "museum" which had caught Esther's eye. It is more of an art-inspired activity centre but it looked good, despite mixed reviews online. After that we weren't very sure what to do, but we'd see what the day offered us.

Found a spot to park pretty close to the museum and in we went. We had missed the introduction to the museum's 5 chickens but I guess the kids know what a chicken is by now so no harm done. There are 3 floors, each with different activities and also some workshops. After getting to know the place for a bit we joined a superhero chicken workshop, where we made a chicken (with a cape) out of a paper cup. It had some rubber bands at the bottom so that if you put it into another paper cup you could shoot your chicken across the room to save humanity. Pretty cool.

After that we went into the music kitchen to make a racket on the instruments made out of kitchen utensils. I think this was our favourite as we returned to it later. There was also a cool climbing area with various loudspeakers and sensors. If a sensor picked up your movement you would be able to hear sounds from the corresponding loudspeaker. Next to it were some wooden cars and a circuit for managing food deliveries.

Outside was another favourite, some farm items (including a small tractor) and a pot of red paint. Previous visiting children had put layer upon layer of paint, as did ours. And got completely messy in the process, despite the apron. Next to that was the ceramics section, and on the balcony upstairs we had bubble-making. There were a few more things, and loads of reading books downstairs so time just flew past. Before we left we joined a paper-making workshop where old paper had been shredded into a pulp. We ended up with some very nice artistic recycled paper sheets.

We were heading home early when we decided to stop and have a walk around Balboa Park. It's a nice little area, with loads of museums (which we didn't enter) and a great floor for scooters. We bumped into the first member of the astronomical society (they gather there monthly) and he let us look at the Sun. We also had a chat with a policeman and got a couple of stickers from the San Diego Police Department. Quite a busy day in the end, and I'm sure it couldn't have been beaten by Legoland.

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