I went on a long walk through downtown this morning. My plan was to take some blog-worthy photographs before the rain begins in earnest tomorrow.
As I randomly wandered from block to block, my eyes found a variety of strange and delightful sights!
A clock wedged between a sidewalk and fence.A wall of roses welcomes guests to Coffee ‘N’ Talk.I must be a mermaid.PARKING is disappearing, and soon there will be none.A boy plays a flute up on someone’s balcony.A frog plays a violin by someone’s front door!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
This morning I was walking down First Avenue, a couple blocks north of the San Diego Convention Center, when I made a cool discovery! Glancing through a window of Simon’s Cafe, I spied some new Comic-Con related artwork by local artist Suzka!
Back in 2017 I posted some of her fun Comic-Con themed paintings here!
I didn’t order anything at Simon’s Cafe this morning, having already eaten breakfast, but the friendly lady at the counter said I could take these photos.
If you want to learn more about Suzka, visit her website here!
Able To Leap… by artist Suzka.Miz Apple by artist Suzka.Birdic-Con by artist Suzka.Gaslamp-Kitty by artist Suzka.
UPDATE!
In late May I enjoyed a yummy breakfast plate at Simon’s Cafe. I noticed some new artwork on the walls…
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
Dancers entertain visitors to Balboa Park as the House of China celebrates Chinese New Year at the International Cottages.
It’s February already, and beginning to feel a tiny bit like spring!
Visitors to Balboa Park today could enjoy many wonderful experiences: the Chinese New Year Festival . . . the International Dance Festival . . . and even a few early cherry blossoms!
As I walked in sunshine and scattered sprinkles, I took many photos.
Colorful young dancers on stage celebrate the Chinese New Year in San Diego.Food, culture and sunshine (and scattered, sprinkling clouds) at the Chinese New Year Festival in Balboa Park.A glimpse of the El Cid statue in Balboa Park on a springlike Sunday in February.Sunshine on bubbles.There’s plenty of bright green down in the Balboa Park Rube Powell Archery Range.A beautiful photo between the House of Hospitality and Casa de Balboa.Prado Perk’s chalkboard indicates it’s almost Valentine’s Day!Athletes in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association gather during a time out during the Third Annual Brad Rich Invitational at Balboa Municipal Gymnasium.The ornamental pear trees are blooming near the Plaza de Balboa.Members of the San Diego Bonsai Club work on small olive trees in the Casa del Prado.I spotted Captain America in the cafe of the Federal Building, future home of the Comic-Con Museum! (He’s actually a member of San Diego’s Science Fiction Coalition.)A beautiful springlike day on El Prado.I was welcomed to the International Dance Festival in the Balboa Park Club.Flags of many nations follow a bagpiper through Balboa Park as the annual International Dance Festival is about to begin.Colorful banners approach the Balboa Park Club.Folk dancing is ready to begin!A banner of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.Meanwhile, folks walk through the always beautiful Japanese Friendship Garden.Looks to me like spring is coming fast!A few early cherry blossoms are blooming in February at the Japanese Friendship Garden.Yes! Spring is around the corner!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
Right half of MMCXVIII/MDCCC, 2018, Emma Laraby. Digital painting.
A fascinating exhibition opened yesterday at the SDSU Downtown Gallery. It’s titled Futures Past and Present.
San Diego State University students and faculty from the School of Art + Design have creatively addressed human society and the passage of time. Unique works of art reflect how the future has been forecast in the past, and how our present informs what is yet to come.
Visions that are presented range from the utopian to the dystopian, and many aspects of human experience and its possibilities are mixed into the artwork. Technology, the environment, urban growth, cultural transformation, and philosophical points of view are some of the themes contained in four sections: Alternate Realities, Building the Future, Inventing the Future, and Personal Prophecies.
Curious minds will enjoy this exhibition. Those who love science fiction, art or futurism should definitely head downtown to check it out!
Futures Past and Present is a very cool exhibition now showing at the SDSU Downtown Gallery in San Diego.Pulp magazines in a display case recall early visions from science fiction. As human life and technology evolve, the genre also evolves.CareLink: transmitting internal data, 2017, Kelly Temple. Archival digital print and other materials.K-bots (10 robots), 2019, Andrew Blackwell. Beech, brass, plastic.BLDNG #6 two views 2008 (In and Out), 2018, David Fobes. Archival inkjet print.Time Capsules Project. SDSU art students created small time capsules and messages that speak to the future.Occupying one corner of the gallery are tools of the past and present. HARD_COPY – Unforgetting Futures Past – a temporary reading room and bindery.Bubble, 2018, Brandie Maddalena. Copper, felt, paracord, steel, human interaction.Washington Marbles, 2018, Tyler Young. Oil paint, acrylic paint, cardboard, dirt and plaster on canvas.The Same, 2018, Tamayo Muto. Archival digital print.The Drain, 2016, Vincent Cordelle. Cast bronze, steel, insulated pipe.Untitled (Potential 40 Units), 2018, Eleanor Greer. Oil and charcoal on canvas.Extravehicular Activity Kit #5, 2018, Zac Keane. Birch ply, hickory, steel, duct tape, nylon.Little Miss Sunshine, 2018, Melissa Salgado. Acrylic and oil on canvas.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
As I waited for a trolley at America Plaza early this afternoon, I thought I’d peer into a window of the Museum of Contemporary Arts San Diego. A gentleman inside saw and motioned for me to come on in!
I was welcomed by Max, a super nice Gallery Educator, who was applying ink to a silk screen. He was using screen printing to create bold messages in the Sanctuary Print Shop!
The project titled Sanctuary Print Shop is the brainchild of artists Sergio De La Torre and Chris Treggiari. The idea of this exhibition is to start conversations concerning the very topical and divisive issue of immigration. People are encouraged to write their thoughts about immigration, and messages are created to paper one wall.
Even though there’s a certain political bias to the exhibition, Max did agree that it’s a complex human issue. There are many different thoughts concerning it. And it’s an issue with many personal connections.
Human creativity and the written word fascinate me, so I enjoyed meeting Max, watching him at work, and reading what others have said!
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!
I walked slowly along the Embarcadero this morning. As I started along San Diego Bay, the February sky was gray and occasionally drizzly.
For a Saturday relatively few people were about. The popular Tuna Harbor Dockside Market was busy, of course, but the first part of my walk was rather quiet. A couple firefighters were jogging on the grass near their fire engine at Seaport Village. I saw some birds, including a beautiful snowy egret. A few fisherman were trying their luck on the pier at Embarcadero Marina Park South.
I said hello to some familiar people.
As I turned back north, I noted a bit more activity. Guys in scuba gear were at work cleaning the hulls of boats in the Marriott Marina. Workers were getting tables ready at various waterside restaurants. Vendors were setting up booths at Ruocco Park’s new Saturday farmers market. Tourists were gathering at the foot of the Embracing Peace statue (originally called Unconditional Surrender) and atop the flight deck of the USS Midway Museum.
And, best of all, the street performers were out and smiling.
As usual the sun came out.
San Diego is magical.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
I was startled this morning during my walk through the Gaslamp Quarter.
Something peculiar was moving directly toward me along the sidewalk. For a split second I thought it was a person.
Then I did a double take.
A bundle of heart-shaped balloons was heading my way!
The cluster of balloons moved slowly down the sidewalk, propelled by a gentle breeze. Occasionally they’d float upward a foot or two, then quietly float back to Earth.
The travelling hearts came to a street corner. They seemed to hesitate. They turned decisively and began steadily down another sidewalk!
After venturing into a patio space in front of one building, they lifted with apparent delight and settled down. They leaned against the rail.
Perhaps they wanted to watch people–other travelling hearts–go by.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
To read a few honest-to-goodness short stories that I’ve written, click Short Stories by Richard.
This morning I spent a few minutes in Balboa Park’s Desert Garden, enjoying a beautiful sunrise.
I had hoped to take photos of new snow on the mountains east of San Diego, but they were too distant for my small camera. What I did discover as I walked down one path was completely unexpected, and indescribably powerful…
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
If you’ve driven up Interstate 5 through La Jolla and University City, you’ve probably seen some impressive construction right next to the freeway. The extension of the San Diego Trolley’s Blue Line is now being built, and much of what is called the Mid-Coast Trolley will be elevated.
The new trolley line will turn from the freeway down Genesee Avenue and finally end at an elevated station at the recently renovated University Towne Centre shopping mall (now called Westfield UTC), adjacent to bus stops at the UTC Transit Center.
On Sunday, as I waited for a bus at the UTC Transit Center, I walked up Genesee Avenue to check out a short stretch of the trolley extension. My photos show what will be the north terminus of the Mid-Coast Trolley.
The project is impressive. Simulations of the UTC Transit Center station and other Mid-Coast Corridor stations can be found here. The trolley extension is scheduled to be completed in 2021.
As I took photos, I was fascinated by the strangely beautiful complexity. Layers of geometric shapes can be observed in the wood, concrete and steel supporting construction of the elevated tracks and station.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
At the southwest corner of Del Mar, high atop cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean north of Torrey Pines State Beach, you’ll find a special seat. It’s called the Sunset Seat.
The Sunset Seat is a work of public art that was carved in the stump of a dead Torrey pine. The tree had been killed by bark beetles.
In 2015 this amazing public art took form. Inspired designer David Arnold and wood carver Tim Richards created a seat where anybody can sit and look out toward the ocean horizon, with a red-tailed hawk perched near their shoulder.
You can find the Sunset Seat a few steps west of a small parking area beside Camino Del Mar, a short distance north of Carmel Valley Road.
One day I will sit beside the beautiful hawk and watch a sunset.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
You can easily explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on my blog’s sidebar. Or click a tag! There are thousands upon thousands of photos for you to enjoy!