Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza - Part 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.

Travel Biography Photo Extravaganza - Part 36.

Concluding the Sydney City Stay.

The 1997 Round-the-World solo backpacking trip was the greatest adventure I have ever taken. The duration out of the UK that year was exactly ten weeks to the day, but this was not the longest in my life. That honour goes to 1994, when I spent 13 weeks in Israel, first as a volunteer at a Christian Conference Centre, and then a month spent alone in a backpacker's hostel in the Old City of Jerusalem.

However, in 1995, I spent a month backpacking across the USA, and this had a profound effect on 1997. The idea of visiting Australia originated from a conversation I had with an Australian bricklayer soon after settling into a twin-bed dorm at a HI hostel in San Diego, a large building on Broadway that was run by the YMCA and had rented out a floor to the hostel. 

Less than two years later, I spent nearly six weeks Down Under. Within that time, I snorkelled over the corals of the Great Barrier Reef - Green Island, Low Isles, and Border Island of the Whitsundays. I then visited K'gari, which is the world's largest sandbank, and the Blue Mountains National Park, a contemporary of the Grand Canyon National Park in the American State of Arizona, which I visited in 1995. And here I am now - in Sydney, the climax of the whole Australian trip, which all began with a conversation across the Pacific Ocean, in southern California.

This week's album contains photos centred more on the city. Since 1997, there have been some changes, especially with the decommissioning and demolition of the Monorail in 2013. The official reason for its demise was due to economic incompatibility, but while I was in Sydney, rumours were that the Monorail was unpopular with the locals and was underused.

The monorail's route was a closed loop linking the Business District to Darling Harbour, passing by the city aquarium, and crossing the Harbour over Pyrmont Bridge. It had eight stations. I boarded at one station and alighted at the same station, hence completing a lap of the circuit. Apparently, I could have stayed on the train, as there was no guard or conductor on board.

The Monorail at Pyrmont Bridge, Sydney, 1997.

The Victoria Building on George Street was an indoor shopping mall housed in a historic building. In 1997, under the central dome hung the Foucault Pendulum, a weight that swung in one direction while the Earth rotated under it. This was towered over by the Centrepoint Tower, nicknamed by some as "The Gearstick", 309 metres high at the tip of its antenna. The top floor viewing gallery, giving a 360-degree view of the city, is 250 metres high. In all, it was the highest tower in the Southern Hemisphere until 1997, when the Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand, opened on August 3rd of that year, with its antenna 19 metres higher. However, its viewing gallery is only 220 metres high, thirty metres lower than its counterpart in Sydney. Thus, to say that I was at the highest point on the Southern Hemisphere holds true to this day.

In all, although I enjoyed the privilege of visiting Sydney, its natural harbour, and the three trips out of the city (Blue Mountains, Palm Beach, and Manly), to me, Sydney was basically another London, but this version with palm trees. However, Sydney boasted the national icon of Australia, the Opera House, and next to it, the Harbour Bridge, an excellent example of civil engineering. But overall, Sydney wasn't the best place I stayed in all of Australia, or even the entire Round-the-World trip. That honour goes to Cairns, on the North Queensland coast. Backed by forested mountains, this city was the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, the highlight of the whole adventure, and the gateway to a whole new experience.

The Flight to Los Angeles, then to San Diego.

I felt sad when I had to vacate my bed at Sydney Central Hostel to board a bus to Kingsford Smith International Airport. But before I left the hostel, I made sure that I had a bed booked at the HI AYH in San Diego, believing that it would be at the same venue as in 1995, the YMCA building on Broadway. But when I examined the booking receipt after checking in, I saw that the address was at Market Street, and not at Broadway. At this, I was puzzled.

The trans-Pacific flight from Sydney to Los Angeles was once the longest non-stop commercial flight in the Guinness Book of Records before the New York/Cape Town flight took its place on the records podium. But the flight I was on had some unusual characteristics. For example, I took off from Sydney around 18.00 hours in the evening on July 4th and landed at Los Angeles International Airport around midday on July 4th. By crossing the International Date Line, I have literally arrived in L.A. six hours earlier on the same day than when I took off!

On the same flight, I also crossed the Equator from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere. This also means that I have crossed from Winter, where the air in Sydney was cool, to Summer, where the air in San Diego was hot and stifling.

After arriving at Los Angeles LAX Airport and passing through Passport Control, I was too tired, after a sleepless night, to think about taking a bus to my destination. Therefore, I asked Security where I could board a connecting flight to San Diego. I was directed to a small domestic flight terminal and departure lounge. Here, I was able to buy an air ticket as easily as buying a train ticket. This was a reward for staying at backpacker's hostels instead of hotels, to be deprived of personal privacy by sleeping in a dormitory, and to buy and cook my own meals instead of eating in restaurants. The reward was luxury travel when I needed it.

I boarded a SkyWest propeller-powered plane for a thirty-minute flight to San Diego. This was the shortest flight of my life, covering just ninety miles (145 km). So ironic that this flight was back-to-back with the longest flight of my life, covering 7,488 air miles (12,050 km). Around two hours before landing, a cloud break allowed me a glimpse of Hawaii below.

After alighting at San Diego Airport, I was able to walk to the city, Downtown San Diego, as the airport was a short walking distance from the city. 

My third stage of the 1997 Round-the-World was about to begin.

For more details of this flight, click here for the link to Week 96.

Photos of Sydney City.

A view of Darling Harbour from "The Gearstick".

The Victoria Building, George Street.

Looking over the city towards the station.

The Botanical Gardens and Mrs Macquarie's Chair.

Hyde Park with its War Memorial.

Archibald Fountain, Hyde Park.

This block nearly obliterated the Bridge and Opera House. 

The Rocks, where the POMS first settled in Australia. 

POMS is "Prisoners Of Majesty's Service."

Market on George Street, The Rocks.

Interior of Victoria Building shopping mall.

The clock ornament, Victoria Building.

Hyde Park.

St Mary's Cathedral.

Centrepoint Tower, from Hyde Park.

Archibald Fountain, Australia/France allegiance, WWI.

 

Distant view of Archibald Fountain, Hyde Park.

The Monorail from the rear of the train.

The train glides over Pyrmont Bridge.

Night Reflections of the Business District.

A species of fig tree, Sydney Botanical Gardens.

A touch of the Tropics, Botanical Gardens.

The Business District, seen from the Botanical Gardens.

Sydney's Oxford St IS different from London's!

Final view of Sydney, a Monorail train passes by.

The Flight to Southern California, USA.

At Sydney's Kingsford Smith International Airport.

About to board the Qantas airline for Los Angeles.

Midflight over Hawaii.

A hole in the clouds and Hawaii could be seen below.

Whilst in a stack, we fly over L.A. LAX Airport.

At LAX Airport, this plane awaits to fly us to San Diego.

The final destination after a long journey, San Diego.

Flight definition: Stack - A queue of planes circling the airport waiting for their turn to land.

Next Week: Arrival in San Diego and some unusual scenes.