Visitors to Balboa Park walk the meandering single path of a labyrinth near the Botanical Building.
Life is a bit like walking a labyrinth. We navigate twists and turns on our forward path.
Yesterday I saw a cool labyrinth set up on a lawn in Balboa Park, right next to the Botanical Building. String was laid on the grass, creating boundaries defining the path.
A labyrinth is not a maze. The walk is peaceful, the sudden smooth turns reorient one’s vision, there is no hurry. Many use labyrinth walking for meditation. It also looks like fun exercise!
Walking through a curving labyrinth can enhance meditation, bringing together body, mind and spirit. Everyone is on their own path through life. (Click image to read.)It’s a beautiful December weekend in Balboa Park. There is much to do, much to see. Our walk through life takes many turns.
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I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! Navigating downtown streets can be like moving through a labyrinth! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or Twitter!
A very special Sunday organ concert in Balboa Park. Today ordinary residents of San Diego and random visitors from around the world joined together to sing Christmas carols!
I wish you could have been there. At the Spreckels Organ Pavilion, this afternoon at 2:00. Your heart would’ve been warmed by the most amazing spectacle.
Young and old, residents of San Diego and random tourists visiting Balboa Park from around the world–all came together spontaneously to sing beloved Christmas carols. Right up on the stage, all together, as one.
What a sight. What a wonderful yearly tradition.
There is hope for this old world.
The holiday season at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion includes candy canes, Christmas cookies and gingerbread men.The free organ concert in Balboa Park this afternoon began with classical and unique organ music composed over the years for Christmas.Spreckels Organ Curator Dale Sorenson smiles as he turns pages for San Diego Civic Organist Emeritus Robert Plimpton.The more fancy organ playing is over. Time for the public to come up on stage to sing familiar Christmas carols!A crowd heads up onto the Spreckels Organ Pavilion stage. Anybody could join in the happy singing.A heartwarming San Diego tradition in Balboa Park. Young and old, everyone and anyone–together people sing many beloved Christmas songs.Ross Porter, Executive Director of the Spreckels Organ Society, leads the proceedings with unabashed zest.A small random sample of humanity singing Christmas carols with joy.
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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 wish you all Happy Holidays and best wishes in this coming New Year!
A bizarre, extremely rare animal was discovered yesterday at the old Jerome’s warehouse in San Diego’s East Village.
Look what I discovered! I was walking down the sidewalk near the old, dilapidated Jerome’s warehouse in East Village when something caught my astonished eye! A weird, bizarre animal jumped at me from the crumbling building!
This particular weird creature did not jump out of the Coliseum. I know the Colosseum in Rome is filled with feral cats.Look! On the Jerome’s warehouse wall! It’s a bizarre rat-like animal that farts green gas! Artist Adam Hathorn is Honkey Kong!
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A sexy San Diego lady and graffiti on a wall inside the very unique SILO venue in East Village.
Check out these photos! I discovered more street art murals at SILO in East Village!
I’ve blogged about this very cool special event venue several times in the past, here and here and here. The spray-painted murals and graffiti are constantly changing, and there are a number of newer works that I hadn’t seen until I walked by this morning. Here they are!
The wall along F Street at SILO has been painted with various cool bits of urban art. That doughnut is making me hungry.A San Diego Sea Walls mural on the same wall features a bearded face and two hands. Not sure about the symbolism.Walking along the sidewalk, we now spy a funky purplish face.A squished-up greenish face.An orange face with oddly protruding eyeballs.Some colorful graffiti I hadn’t seen previously inside SILO. It’s probably been a year since I walked by here. I took this and the following photos through a fence.Looks like a strange scene from Alice in Wonderland.Female face spray painted on a wall.A look down into the fantastic SILO special event venue. I don’t recall seeing that cargo container before.Just tons of cool images. Like a crazy dream in the center of the city! I think that mural on top might be somewhat new.A very cool abstract jumble of street art on a brick wall.Looks like some sort of cosmic bird deities have arrived from outer space. You tell me what this one means!
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People check out many planters full of vegetables and flowers at the new SMARTS Farm in East Village.
Today I walked to East Village in downtown San Diego to check out a holiday event at SMARTS Farm. I didn’t realize that this cool community garden had recently moved. Their new and improved location is at the corner of 13th Street and Broadway.
At SMARTS Farm, anybody is welcome to become an urban gardener–growing flowers or vegetables in the heart of our sunny city. Downtown residents can relax here, kids can learn about farming, botany and nature, and I believe photography classes are still offered.
If you’re ever downtown, swing on by to see for yourself!
SMARTS Farm in San Diego’s East Village is a community garden where hearts can grow and minds thrive.A wreath is hung on the barn inside SMARTS Farm to celebrate the holiday season. They’ve moved to a new location and are open to everyone in the community!Someone makes a wreath the week before Christmas during a special SMARTS Farm holiday event.These guys were rolling out yummy pizzas!Walking around the large colorful garden. Schools and community groups can grow their own plants in an urban environment downtown.Lessons about how to plant urban crops were underway in the late morning.A young gardener sows some seeds at SMARTS Farm.Hands on farming includes a children’s garden and plants grown by nearby school KIPP Adelante Preparatory Academy–my neighbor on Cortez Hill.A pleasant day can be had tending a garden and learning about gardening in the middle of downtown San Diego!Nature, Water, Air. At SMARTS Farm, every day is Earth Day!
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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!
We read to know we are not alone. Wise words inscribed in the San Diego Central Library’s large, friendly Reading Room.
Many wise words are digested by hungry minds at the San Diego Public Library. At the Central Library in downtown San Diego, wise sayings and phrases are inscribed upon the building itself. One must simply open eyes to find inspiration.
The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.If there’s a book you really want to read but hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.We will be known forever by the tracks we leave. A San Diego Trolley heads down tracks past some wisdom written on the east side of the downtown public library.Yo que me figuraba el paraiso bajo la especie de una biblioteca. From Poem of the Gifts, by Jorge Luis Borges . . . I who had always thought of Paradise in form and image as a library . . .It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.I go into my library and all history unrolls before me.Words inscribed on steps leading to the San Diego Central Library. A portion of Maya Angelou’s On the Pulse of Morning, a poem read during the 1993 Presidential Inauguration.
Women, children, men, take it into the palms of your hands, mold it into the shape of your most private need. Sculpt it into the image of your most public self. Lift up your hearts. Each new hour holds new chances for new beginning.
A trolley heads down Park Boulevard past a series of wise sayings and phrases concerning books, libraries and the written word.
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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!
Colorful faces and complex depth are elements of a public mural located in Golden Hill.
I haven’t taken a walk through Golden Hill for several months. But this morning I discovered some photos of a cool Golden Hill mural languishing in my computer. I forgot!
This public art at the corner of 25th Street and B Street celebrates the diversity and the vibrancy one encounters in San Diego’s small Golden Hill community. It’s an enlarged version of a 8.25 by 19 inch mixed media collage, created by artist Giancarlo Pia in 2013. I love how three dimensional and richly colorful this mural is!
Giancarlo Pia. Golden Hill, 2013. Mixed Media Collage. This mural is dedicated to the residents of Golden Hill and reflects the vibrancy and diversity of the community.Many lively images can be seen in this artwork. The rich culture and history of Golden Hill is celebrated.A very cool mural at a street corner in Golden Hill.
UPDATE!
Here’s a much better complete photo of the mural that I took on a later walk…
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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!
Tourists on San Diego’s Embarcadero have fun with gigantic bubbles.
Just a few photos of people at work and play in San Diego. These were taken over this last year. How time flies.
A businessman walks to work one morning in downtown San Diego.Two fishermen enjoy their day on Shelter Island.Working and chatting at Horton Plaza Park.Two sweethearts enjoy slacklining at Embarcadero Marina Park South.Unloading boxes of produce at the Flagship dock near Broadway Pier.People enjoy a day of boating on blue San Diego Bay.Families investigate statue-like street musician in Balboa Park.Construction workers put the finishing touches on a new downtown building.Walking on some rocks on a fine sunny San Diego day.
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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!
Old tin shop sign still visible on the historic 1882 Independent Order of Odd Fellows Building in San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. A remnant of a past era.
While walking around downtown San Diego, I’m always pleased to make unexpected discoveries. Once in a while I’ll spot faded signs and advertisements that were painted years ago on historic old buildings. Unfortunately, many of those old signs are vanishing and will eventually be lost to time. Some of those walls will be painted, or new buildings will sprout up . . . That’s progress, I suppose.
I did some searching on the internet looking for information about the more mysterious signs, but with very little success. I increased the contrast of many photos to try to make out the faded words. If you know anything, leave a comment!
Most of these photos were taken in the morning, the last three or four days…
A faded sign is painted high on the 1888 Nesmith-Greely Building on Fifth Avenue. It is just visible from the street.One can barely make out the words HOTEL . . . ROOMS 50c to $1.00Old brick building at Seventh Avenue and G Street has words so obliterated I can’t decipher anything.The William Penn Hotel building at Fourth Avenue and F Street opened in 1913 as the elegant Oxford Hotel.Painted words from San Diego’s past. The Windsor Hotel on Fourth Avenue was built in 1887. The first floor was once a pool hall; in the 1960s it contained cardrooms and nightclubs with go-go dancers.The 1910 Western Metal Supply Company Building is now an iconic part of Petco Park in San Diego, home of the baseball Padres.The faded word LYON on a building at the corner of K Street and Fourth Avenue.From a distance, a square space on the side of the Simmons Hotel on Sixth Avenue appears to be blank reddish bricks.But a closer look reveals old words from many years ago. Perhaps you can figure out what they say.Faded words can also be spotted high on the Plaza Hotel building on Fourth Avenue.I can barely discern a few letters.The building on the right is The McGurck Block, built in 1887. A drug store was located in it from 1903 to 1984. Actor Gregory Peck’s father worked there as the night druggist.High up, painted on the old brick building’s side is a fading advertisement. A glimpse of San Diego’s past.
Here’s another pic I snapped on Fifth Avenue just south of Broadway:
Faded sign on side of a building on the 900 block of Fifth Avenue.
I’ve blogged in the past about a variety of cool old painted signs and images in downtown San Diego. Here they are:
Here’s a pic I took several years later, as I sat waiting for a bus at the City College trolley station, looking west…
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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!
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