Tag: balboa park

A taste of the 40th Annual Ethnic Food Fair!

The 40th Annual Ethnic Food Fair is taking place today in San Diego’s Balboa Park!

If you read this in time, the big culinary festival continues at the International Cottages through 7 pm.

I must confess I walked through the event quickly and didn’t partake of any food, but I did pause for a few minutes to take in the atmosphere, and to watch dancers in folk costume from the House of Turkey performing on stage. Look at the huge crowd!

I did smell many different wonderful aromas!

Here’s a photographic taste of what visitors to the Ethnic Food Fair enjoyed today!

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Beautiful blooms at San Diego Iris Society show.

I took a bunch of flower photographs today at the San Diego Iris Society’s show and sale in Balboa Park. Some of the blooms were beginning to dry out after a full weekend, but that is the eventual fate of any beautiful flower.

In my last blog post, I quoted Frida Kahlo: “I paint flowers so they will not die.” Well, perhaps by taking photographs, the same immortality can be achieved!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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!

Antique gas pumps at Automotive Museum!

Unique, classic and amazing one-of-a-kind vehicles dazzle visitors to the San Diego Automotive Museum. Lovers of nostalgia and the history of invention have can have a field day by simply wandering about the museum floor.

During my last visit to the Automotive Museum I noticed a bunch of old antique gas pumps displayed here and there.

Perhaps you’re old enough to remember the days when pumps similar to these were the norm. And a friendly gas station worker would pump your fuel and wash your windows with a smile. And you might receive some trading stamps, too.

I vaguely remember. But I’m getting old and that was long ago.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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!

Balboa Park markers for police who died in combat.

Two markers in Balboa Park, not far from the entrance to the Veterans Museum and Memorial Center, remember and honor members of the San Diego Police Department who died in combat.

I knew nothing about these markers until I visited the San Diego Police Museum recently. A display on one wall included an old photograph and an explanation of the older marker and its plaque’s history.

Veterans War Museum Balboa Park

In 1953, a stone marker was dedicated to members of the San Diego Police Department who died in combat. Located at the base of a flag pole at the entrance to the San Diego Zoo, the marker eventually became overgrown and forgotten. The monument was relocated to the Balboa Park Veterans Museum. On May 14, 2014, it was rededicated. The master of ceremonies was former SDPD officer, now Brigadier General Paul K. Lebidine, USMC.

Other monuments in and around San Diego memorialize fallen law enforcement officers.

Those monuments that I’ve observed and photographed can be found here and here and here.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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!

Trino’s World exhibition opens at Comic-Con Museum!

What is Trino’s World? It’s a world of cartoon fun that opened today at San Diego’s Comic-Con Museum in Balboa Park!

Trino is the “pen” name of popular, award-winning Mexican cartoonist José Trinidad Camacho. You might recognize some his wacky characters.

With his humorous, often irreverent art, Trino both lampoons and celebrates Mexican life. I noticed that his subjects include lucha libre, movies, soccer, politics, ordinary people…

The funny thing is, his humor can provoke laughter from just about everybody. His wry illustrations can resonate with many. Human foibles seem to be universal.

The cool artwork on display for Trino’s World comes from the artist’s personal collection. This is the first exhibition of Trino art in a United States museum.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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!

Folk dancing under the Moreton Bay Fig!

As always, Balboa Park was alive today!

Look what I stumbled upon while walking past the gigantic old Moreton Bay Fig tree, by the San Diego Natural History Museum. Folk dancing!

The Cabrillo International Folk Dancers had made the wooden platform under the massive tree their dance floor. That’s because, I was told, the Balboa Park Club ballroom, where they usually dance, was being used for another event.

Learn more about the Cabrillo International Folk Dancers and consider joining the fun group by clicking here!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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!

Famous fashion inspires San Diego students!

Fashion designer Arnold Scaasi created elegant gowns for many First Ladies and famous movie stars.

What happens when four Scasssi dresses inspire San Diego Mesa College fashion students?

You end up with four unique new creations, now on display at the San Diego History Center!

Visitors to the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park are encouraged to examine contrasted garments during the museum’s just-opened Fashion Redux 2023 exhibition.

Dresses by Arnold Scaasi in the museum’s collection represent the Glam 1980s. The four fashion students got a good look at them and, recalling that decade of printed blouses and big hair, were inspired to produce clothing that is similar, but new! Bold color and padded shoulders, anyone?

The Mesa College students whose artistry is on display are Ramses Alfaro Mendoza, Leo Cotton, Eddie Villarreal and Robbie Matawaran.

Here are the Scassi dresses…

And here are the inspired new creations…

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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!

Horton Plaza model at San Diego History Center.

Little remains of the colorful old Horton Plaza shopping mall in downtown San Diego.

Shoppers who once wandered through the creatively designed complex, which debuted back in 1985, might enjoy heading over to the San Diego History Center in Balboa Park. There’s a great scale model of Horton Plaza now on display!

Living downtown for over two decades, I’ve used my camera to document various developments in and around Horton Plaza during my walks. Most recently, I took photos of how the whimsical, touristy shopping mall is being redeveloped into a mixed-use technology and biotech campus called Horton. You can see those photos here.

The display of the Horton Plaza model at the San Diego History Center coincides with their newly opened Fashion Redux 2023 exhibition. Fashion students from Mesa College viewed garments in the History Center’s textile collection dating from the “Glam 1980s” and were inspired to create their own bold clothing. I’ll be blogging about that soon!

Horton Plaza Model. Metal, paperboard, plastic, wood. Gift of H.S.D./Horton Associates.

Commissioned by the Hahn Company, the model was built to illustrate and “sell” the Jon Jerde Group’s design of Horton Plaza to the public.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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!

Dance and food at the Cervantes Festival!

The Cervantes Festival was held today in San Diego!

The House of Spain hosted the fun cultural event in Balboa Park, with visitors enjoying entertainment, authentic Spanish food, a kids art table and more. I’m told the festival kicked off in the morning with young people reading from Cervantes’ classic novel Don Quixote.

When I arrived, people were watching flamenco dance on the International Cottages lawn and devouring tasty Spanish paella, jamón serrano, Manchego cheese (made in the La Mancha region of Spain) and other gastronomic goodies.

I walked about for a bit, looking for sights related to the great Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. I found small sculptures of the timeless character Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza in a display case inside the House of Spain cottage!

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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!

Beaded horse and animals at the Mingei!

I love this carousel horse! It was created using thousands of glass beads! Visitors to the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park can’t miss it!

The beaded horse and several smaller animals occupy a large display case on the museum’s ground floor, which is free for visitors to enter.

Look at all the colorful designs made with tiny beads. The patterns and figures on these animals are full of cultural symbolism.

The horse itself was created in the mid-1990s inside the museum by Rosendo Carillo de la Rosa and his family, who traveled to San Diego from the Huichol community in Jalisco, Mexico.

The large carousel horse is made of fiberglass, glass beads and beeswax. The smaller animals, like the snake and jaguar, also representing the Huichol Sierra Culture, are formed using wood instead of fiberglass. Several different artists crafted these amazing bead animals.

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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!

I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!

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!