Today I enjoyed a performance of the Fern Street Circus at Teralta Park in City Heights. Before the circus acts began, however, the gathered crowd was wowed by the young musicians of Mariachi Victoria de San Diego!
The young students on stage were poised and amazing, their music blending perfectly with that of the adults. One young man with a microphone was a true showman with a great future in entertainment ahead!
The audience sat enraptured throughout, and offered great applause when the concert concluded!
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An exciting event is coming to San Diego next week!
From Wednesday, May 17 to Sunday, May 21, the many colorful murals that reflect Chicano history and culture in several of our city’s communities will be celebrated with a special tour, workshops, lectures, dance, poetry and more!
Our Walls Speak is the name of this free event. Those who participate will have the opportunity to experience not only Chicano Park’s famous murals, but other murals in nearby communities. Participants will come away inspired, understanding the importance and meaning of these empowering works of art, and the need to preserve them.
According to the event website: This year’s 2023 “Our Walls Speak!: Nuestros Muros Hablan!”, event features four days of live and virtual panel/community discussions, artist and elder interviews and storytelling, and mural art exhibitions. Download and attend a neighborhood mural walk/drive/tour through the San Diego neighborhoods of Logan Heights, Sherman Heights and Golden Hills communities. Join us on Sunday May 21st for youth and family mural art workshops, spoken word, music and dance movement performances and local street food vendors serving healthy and delicious recipes.
To see the many free activities that can be enjoyed over the course of five days, and to register for Our Walls Speak, click 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!
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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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!
Cinco de Mayo is being celebrated all this weekend in Old Town San Diego!
I walked around Old Town today to experience the energy. I observed a big crowd wandering through the State Park, navigating San Diego Avenue’s sidewalks, and dining in festive Mexican restaurants. Many people were smiling!
This year Cinco de Mayo is scaled down. I was told it’s for financial reasons. San Diego Avenue is not closed to traffic as it usually is, and there are no stages on the street with live performances. But that hasn’t stopped this fun annual fiesta!
As I meandered about, I took some photographs that you might enjoy…
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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!
The history of human activity beside the life-giving San Diego River can be viewed from the outdoor terrace of the Junípero Serra Museum.
The museum’s scenic San Diego Riverview exhibit helps visitors visualize the where and when of various important developments in the area. Historical images from the San Diego History Center Photo Collection can be compared to present-day sights in nearby Mission Valley and beyond.
I walked up Presidio Hill today to check out this relatively new exhibit.
As I write this, I can still remember my first visit to the Junípero Serra Museum. The landmark building stands high atop Presidio Hill overlooking Old Town and the west end of Mission Valley. Revisit those old photographs here.
Years ago I also posted a blog about climbing Presidio Hill, where Europeans first settled in California. See that here. Since then I’ve walked around Presidio Park many times and have shared all sorts of photographs. You can find many of them by using this website’s search box.
A plaque by the outdoor terrace acknowledges those who helped with the Serra Museum’s recent restorations.Look for several of these signs outside the Junípero Serra Museum.Interstate 8 runs through Mission Valley just below Presidio Hill.Historical photos and information await visitors at the northeast corner of the Serra Museum’s outdoor terrace.If you peer to the west beyond some trees, you can see San Diego Bay, which explorer Cabrillo discovered for Spain in 1542.Survey of the San Diego River and San Diego Bay, 1853.The Native American Kumeyaay lived in a village called Cosoy at the base of Presidio Hill near the San Diego River.Derby Dike was built in 1853 by Lt. George Derby of the Army Corps of Engineers. The dike altered the course of the San Diego River, which periodically flooded Old Town, into False Bay–now called Mission Bay.
To see a historical plaque which marks the approximate location of old Derby Dike, click here.
Believe it or not, dike engineer Lieutenant George Horatio Derby was also a humorist who inspired Mark Twain! His pen name was Squibob. You can still see where he lodged while working in San Diego. Read about that here!
Photo of rebuilt Derby Dike in 1931.Mission Bay can be spied to the northwest. The natural marsh and tidelands were enlarged by dredging from 1949 through the 1960s.By looking from the Serra Museum’s terrace beyond nearby trees, you can glimpse La Jolla’s Mount Soledad to the northwest.Photo of Old Town bridge washed out in 1916 flood. Rainmaker Charles Hatfield was both credited and blamed for the 20 day downpour!The San Diego River in Mission Valley has been a source of food and water for the Kumeyaay, Spanish, Mexicans and Americans over the years. Before its urban development, many dairy farms could be found in Mission Valley.Photo of Mission Valley from 1915.Display concerns efforts for environmental preservation, and the history Mission San Diego de Alcalá. In 1774 the Spanish mission moved 6 miles inland from its original 1769 location on Presidio Hill.On a very clear day you can barely see the Cuyamaca Mountains to the east. That’s where the San Diego River begins.Mission Valley’s development began in earnest in the 1950s, with the construction of Atlas Hotels and May Company Shopping Center. San Diego Stadium arrived in the 1960s.Over the centuries, many people from diverse cultures have contributed to the history of this dynamic place. At the center of it all runs the San Diego River.
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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!
The big annual Without Walls Festival, presented by the La Jolla Playhouse in association with the San Diego Symphony, is taking place all this weekend at the Rady Shell!
Today after work I headed behind the San Diego Convention Center to Embarcadero Marina Park South where very unique outdoor performances and activities could be freely enjoyed!
I saw many families and theatre lovers enjoying music, food, and of course, the intriguing productions.
One play involves the actual recreational vehicle used by an actress during COVID, and her strong experiences during a cross-country expedition.
Interactive activities include exploring the inspiration behind a Mexican restaurant in Barrio Logan, negotiation between yourself and a stranger that might result in personal transformation, an imaginative playscape for children, an immense puzzle whose solution requires collective cooperation, thought-provoking artwork beside the water of San Diego Bay, and the chance to mingle among gigantic, stilt-walking puppets that resemble birds from prehistoric times! WOW, indeed!
Learn all about the what and where and when 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!
I saw some of the artwork during my own Friday morning walk through Piazza della Famiglia and Piazza Basilone. Artists were being interviewed by a television reporter to promote the event. I snapped a few fun pics as I passed by!
Looks like the annual Art Walk will be great fun as usual! Come down to Little Italy this weekend and support local artists!
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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!
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!
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!
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!
Cool San Diego Sights! 