Glowfari, Lantern Festival at the Oakland Zoo, Oakland, CA
Lighting up the winter night at the Oakland Zoo in California are hundreds of larger-than-life animal lanterns, ranging from dinosaurs, mammoths and other extinct creatures, to butterflies, flowers, monkeys, koalas and a host of other animals. The themes of this year's Glowfari are Land of Extinction, California Coastline, Wonders from Down Under, Neon-Tropics and Mythical Odyssey.
Giant Sea Reptile in Land of Extinction
The Glowfari Lantern Festival is open evenings at the Oakland Zoo (5:00-9:00 pm) and has been extended to March 4th. (The zoo was closed in January due to damage by heavy rain.) Tickets with timed entry are available online and sell out fast. (Tickets are not exchangeable.) Whatever the weather, Glowfari is open.
For scale, note silhouettes of people carrying umbrellas.
As it happened, after a week of dry weather, on the night of our visit in late December it began to rain just as we arrived, so we put on our raincoats and got our umbrellas. Even in the rain, the lanterns were impressive. Here are some of my favorites:
Baby dinosaur hatching out of its egg.
Chambered Nautilus.
Capybara from South America.
Dingoes from Australia.
Lighted paths lead from one exhibit area to the next, ending at the gondola station which takes you to the upper level and the section featuring the California coastline, with lanterns ranging from whales to microscopic plankton. The only real animals visible during Glowfari are the snakes and lizards in the reptile house. The rest of the zoo animals are all out of sight in their nighttime enclosures. Because of the weather and the long line of people waiting for the gondola, we skipped that part of Glowfari. We were sorry to miss it because we had enjoyed the gondola ride last year. The view from the top across San Francisco Bay is impressive. We’ll hope for better weather next year!
Under the sea.
