Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza - Week 37

 Arrival in San Diego after a long journey.

After collecting my rucksack from the small luggage carousel at San Diego Airport, I hoisted it over my shoulders and began the walk to the city centre, which wasn't far. The route hugged the harbour, and the footway leading to Broadway Pier offered fine views of the bay, populated with boats, yachts, and ferries to Coronado, a strip of land enclosing San Diego Bay, which is almost a lagoon.

Yet, everything looked so familiar, unlike any of the stops in Australia. Unlike in Sydney, where the air was cool and often cloudy, the air felt warm and stifling here in Southern California, even though I was still dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a woolly top.

Winter in Sydney.

Summer in San Diego after an overnight flight.

When I arrived at the Broadway pierhead, I turned onto it and saw the Naval ship nearby. It was open to the public as a museum. Returning to the street, I sought the YMCA building on Broadway and entered its open doors. Memories of 1995.

The check-in desk where I paid the hostel fee was still there, but now it looked abandoned and derelict. However, on the desk was a notice announcing that the HI hostel has moved to Market Street. I checked the booking receipt I was given at the Sydney hostel. There was no misprint, as I first thought. Rather, Hostelling International was ahead of me in dispensing the correct booking information.

After walking for a few blocks, I arrived at Market Street and soon found the hostel. After checking in, I was allocated a bed in a refurbished dormitory on the 3rd floor (that is the 2nd floor by British definition). I sighed. This new location didn't feel the same as the YMCA two years earlier. Here, I was in a multi-bed dorm like in any other hostel, and not in a twin-bed dorm as before. This time, there was no Aussie to share the room with and to advise me to visit Australia. 

Added to this, there was a night curfew on the use of the member's kitchen. Here in Market Street, the kitchen closed around 11.00 pm and opened at 7.00 am. When the hostel was on Broadway, we had 24-hour access to the kitchen, a feature I had found to be helpful when I needed to warm up some milk around 2.00 am during a sleepless night. Furthermore, after the move, the owners were considering the initiation of the morning duty, so I was told, but this was quickly shelved upon realisation that there was competition, especially from Backpackers' North America, a rival company with their Banana Bungalow hostels, which scored highly in popularity among the twenty-somethings. 

After checking in and settling down at my assigned bed, I was feeling tired and also had a mild fever. This was due to the sudden climate shock, the same when I left Singapore Changi Airport Arrivals and stepped outside, over six weeks earlier. Back then, I carried some Paracetamol in my rucksack. I still had them and took a dose. The fever slowly eased.

That same evening, after dark, fireworks were let off at certain points along the harbour front. I soon found out that I had arrived in the USA on the 4th of July - Independence Day. I then arose after a few hours resting and strolled along the harbour front, hoping to watch an organised fireworks display. But instead, an individual, family or group let off their own fireworks, perhaps at a designated spot, and it was over in minutes. Despite past visits, I was still unfamiliar with American holiday customs.

As I checked out the city, I noticed one or two changes since 1995. One was where the trolley tram tracks passed through a garden strip. In 1995, I was able to cross over the tracks without hindrance; now they are fenced off. During the period between visits, did some youths mess around on the tracks and jeopardise their lives, say, with a game of "Dare"? And so, it looked to me that the public can't be trusted to respect the railway tracks like adults, and the need to fence them off became necessary.

The other, more positive change, took place at the Horton Plaza on Broadway. Here, a life-size sand model of a Tyrannosaurus dominated the square. I have even given it a name - Sandy. At the harbour front, there was a man in his thirties with incredible skill. The artist was balancing beach pebbles and larger stones until they balanced with exact precision, one on top of the other, forming towers. They attracted spectators among the passersby, me included, to gasp at such skillfulness.

By re-visiting Balmoral Park, this beautiful area hadn't changed since 1995. But this time, instead of visiting museums as I did two years previously, I spent the day at the San Diego Zoo. (Photos of the animals will appear next week.) Although I felt that all animals not domesticated are born to live in the wild, I felt a level of unease seeing them in captivity. Yet, they didn't seem that unhappy. All of them were well looked after in a semi-tropical, well-vegetated environment.

Although this was my first visit to the zoo, I had visited SeaWorld in 1995. So, I returned in 1997, as I have a greater interest in marine life than land life. This was further enhanced by my recent visit to the Great Barrier Reef, where the only "barrier" between me and the corals was the goggles I wore, and not the thick glass of the aquarium wall! Yet even here, in such a family-oriented environment, there was a hint of sadness in seeing such creatures in captivity. I still hold to the view that snorkelling over the corals was far more exhilarating. However, on the 1997 visit to SeaWorld, I made sure I stayed dry and avoided the soakings I got two years earlier.

Click here for the Index to the main Biography, covering Weeks 97-100.

 

Photos of Downtown San Diego, SeaWorld, and the Zoo.

San Diego Harbour as seen from outside the airport.

I approach the city along the harbour front.

The Battleship Museum

Horton Plaza.

Another view of Horton Plaza.

Sand models, Horton Plaza.

Sandy the Tyrannosaurus.

A view of the city from Balboa Park.

These palm species seem to be unique to San Diego.

Spanish architecture, Balboa Park.

Balboa Park is beautiful!

El Prado, Balboa Park.

I love the sub-Tropical gardens.

Spanish/Mexican village.

Museum of Man, Balboa Park.

El Prado is the main street of the park.

At the harbour front, I see this artist.

Two of his amazing works.

They attract other sightseers.

The Embarcaderio

The garden strip and the trolley tram tracks in 1995.

The same spot in 1997. The tracks are now fenced off.

The Dolphin pool and theatre, SeaWorld.

A dolphin leaps - but this time I stayed dry.

This seal was screaming for food. This saddens me.

Moray Eels are looking tranquil.

There was a cable car ride over SeaWorld.

View of a Marina from the cable car.

Botanical scene from San Diego Zoo

Bamboo garden at San Diego Zoo.

Travellers Palms, Botanical Gardens at the Zoo.

These are a different species of Traveller's Palms.

There is even a Cacti patch at the Zoo.

A live band plays at the Zoo.

The Zoo also has a cable car ride.

A view of the Aviary from the restaurant.

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Big question: Are there any animals at this Zoo? Yes! Next week.