Austin, TX
 |
Me," Okay smile for a nice picture in the cat café!"
Donna, "KITTY!" |
Weekend Visitors
This weekend Sharon and Erika came to visit us in Austin. They drove down from Dallas just after the ice storm to spend some time with us and explore Austin. We started off at the
Purrfecto Cat Lounge. This cat lounge rescues cats from the Houston area and runs a lounge and adoption service. I always pictured a Cat Café like having high tea with cats walking around but it was nothing like that. We sat on a bench and hung out with cats. It was fun watching all of the people there interacting with cats that wanted and didn't want attention.
Later that evening we walked to South Congress Ave. for some ice cream. It was our first time being out after dark so I took the opportunity to take a bunch of photos of the neon signs that seem to be everywhere in Austin.
Sunday Adventures
Sunday morning we got up "early" and went to breakfast.
Proud Mary Coffee is known for its artisan pour over coffee. We make pour over all the time so we thought we should get some of theirs and it was really good but we prefer our strong espresso style pour over. After breakfast it was time for The
Zilker Botanic Garden. It's winter so there wasn't much in bloom but the layout of the Japanese Garden was really cool. There were a lot of areas where you could skip across stones. We also got a new life bird, The Black-crested Titmouse.
After all of this excitement it was time for an early afternoon nap. Donna and I headed back to the Airbnb while Erika and Sharon explored more of Austin. After resting up we all got back together again and headed to
Tiki Tatsu-ya for drinks and then
Ramen Tatsu-ya for dinner. It was our 2nd time for Tiki and our first time at the Ramen shop. Both were excellent.
 |
| Texas Landmark plugging Free Enterprise |
 |
| There was plenty of seating on a Sunday at 3:15 |
The Austin Aquarium
On Monday we stopped by The Austin Aquarium. Erika and Sharon go to Aquariums wherever they go and they hadn't been to this one. I don't have much experience with Aquariums. We have been to a few and they are usually in giant purpose made buildings. The Austin Aquarium is in a strip mall in the Austin Suburbs. It wasn't what I expected but we had a lot of fun exploring the exhibits. It was a unique experience where you pay to get in and then you buy tokens to do various feedings and meet various animals if they are in the mood to meet you.
 |
| They had cleaner shrimp so we got our dead skin removed |
 |
| Donna bought food to feed the sting rays. I have already had my encounter with string rays while surfing so I passed. |
 |
| It was free to stick my head in this sharks mouth |
 |
| I also got to stick my head in an octopus and pretend like I am an Italian Chef. "The Fettuccini is good!, Buy the Fettuccini!" |
 |
| Donna fed these fish seaweed. This is the moment that the puffer fish latched onto her finger between the 1st and 2nd knuckle and it held on until it was fully out of the water. We may have been doing it wrong. |
 |
| We got to feed the birds for tuppence a bag. |
 |
| They let this tortoise road free but put a balloon on them so you didn't trip over them. |
 |
| Donna fed sharks too, even after the puffer fish incident. |
 |
| This is the look of pure joy. |
 |
| They also had cleaner fish. You could get a manicure or pedicure. |
 |
| Erika wanted to feed and pet the Capybara but the handler couldn't get it motivated for food so Erika got her tokens back. |
 |
| They have a shark breeding program |
It was a fun weekend of catching up with Erika and Sharon and discovering more of Austin.
If you missed the last post you can find it
here. We have about 2 weeks until we move on to Memphis and there is still a lot to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment