Christmas trees and bright holiday decorations now fill the passenger deck of the historic ferryboat Berkeley! It appears to me that for 2022 there are more decorated trees and strung lights and snowflakes and magic than ever before!
Anyone who has stepped aboard the Berkeley at the Maritime Museum of San Diego knows how special the old ferryboat is. The ship’s cathedral-like passenger deck, with its colored windows and varnished wooden benches and views of the bay, is one of my favorite places in all of San Diego.
Imagine the spectacle after dark produced by the many Christmas trees and lights. Guests aboard Berkeley watching the Parade of Lights will be dazzled!
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The huge, detailed train layouts are amazing by themselves, but during the Holiday Season, additional surprises await around the museum!
There are beautiful Christmas trees, a talking, animatronic Santa to excite kids, and tiny holiday scenes placed in several of the scale train layouts.
But by far the most magic can be experienced in the Toy Train Gallery!
In the Toy Train Gallery, young and old gaze wide-eyed at a lively city filled with holiday figures and bright decorations. Trains illuminated with colored Christmas lights pass through happy winter scenes. Snowmen and Christmas trees perch on rooftops. It like a dream world one might see in a snow globe–filled with life and activity!
In addition, the Toy Train Gallery’s walls are filled with holiday artwork that will make old-timers nostalgic for years gone by.
A few photos provide a small taste…
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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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
A mysterious Christmas tree appears every year on the sand at South Cardiff State Beach. Nobody knows who places this Tree by the Sea.
The annual appearance of the Christmas tree has become a magical holiday tradition in Cardiff-by-the-Sea. The Tree by the Sea has delighted beachgoers for about three decades. You can read more about its history here.
Enjoy these photographs that I took today.
It was a cloudy late November weekday. Very few people were on the beach. The contrast of sand and ocean, and the decorated tree, makes these images strange and interesting.
Anybody can add their own ornaments. I noticed many have a surfing theme!
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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!
It’s easy to explore Cool San Diego Sights by using the search box on this website’s sidebar. Or click a tag. There’s a lot of stuff to share and enjoy!
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!
What’s better than free ice cream and a free concert?
Free ice cream and a fantastic free concert in beautiful Balboa Park!
A huge crowd came out to the Spreckels Organ Pavilion this evening to smile, laugh, sing, and dance to the music of San Diego’s own The Moonlight Serenade Orchestra. And, of course, to devour ice cream!
The music was infectious. The vibe was energetic. The audience was often clapping, and couples were swaying and spinning on the outdoor dance floor. Tunes included Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Dancing Queen, Old Time Rock and Roll, Respect, In the Mood, Over the Rainbow, and a variety of others, including many big band classics.
The highlight for me–and it appeared to be for many–was the solo drumming performance by D. J. Jackson in the encore song Sing, Sing, Sing. He was a magician whose magic seemed limitless. I didn’t want his inspired wizardry to end.
A long standing ovation resulted!
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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!
A pretty good crowd was walking around outside Comic-Con this Sunday mid-afternoon. The more popular offsite activations still had long lines–two hours in many cases! But some of the lesser offsites were already coming down, being dismantled, loaded back into trucks.
Comic-Con 2022 went by all too fast!
I had the energy for one more walk. Back to work tomorrow.
I hope many of you enjoyed looking at some of my photos this past week. Now I think I’ll take a few days off from blogging, to catch my breath.
But I’m sure there will be many more cool San Diego sights to come!
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!
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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!
Powerful witches and wizards have travelled from the world of Harry Potter to San Diego for Comic-Con 2022!
I saw the magical procession this morning and was astonished to discover so many J. K. Rowling characters present.
This awesome cosplay group has had their Comic-Con procession across from the San Diego Convention Center numerous times in the past. This year it appeared bigger and more amazing than ever!
How many characters do you recognize?
I see Snape and Dumbledore (two of them!) and McGonagall and Hagrid and Trelawney and Sprout and Tonks and Lupin and Fleur Delacour and Newt Scamander and Grindelwald and even a nascent Voldemort in the arms of that ratty Peter Pettigrew!
And Hermione! And Harry Potter himself!
And many others!
Enjoy some photos of this really great cosplay!
If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!
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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 took my seat inside the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park and waited for the dance to begin. And what we got was a guy in a gorilla suit playing guitar! Then a clown on a tricycle!
Okay, I thought to myself. It’s the Fringe Festival. Only 10 bucks.
But then the performance changed dramatically.
And some good ballet dancing began. Really good!
I was blown away by the fluidity, sensuousness, and gorgeous moves by two dancers who obviously knew what they were doing!
Philip Amer, the Artistic Director of Induction Dance, danced with Saori Maeda. When each of several dances were completed, the audience applauded loudly. It was deserved.
Philip Amer hails from Escondido. Over the years he has performed with numerous ballet companies across the country. He also teaches dance.
Saori Maeda is 23 years old. She’s from Japan, now studying ballet and training in Southern California. Her moves were graceful and flawless. She is destined to be a star!
The performance today included several humorous skits that worked quite well, including a dance with a cloth dummy, and a mime-like ballerina trying to communicate words with particular movements.
Philip Amer stated his object is to make ballet entertaining and accessible for ordinary folk. I don’t know about the guitar playing gorilla and clown on a tricycle, but the rest of the act was original, witty, 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!
The musicians of the San Diego Symphony performed magic this evening.
Together, using enchanted instruments, the magicians summoned beautiful, ephemeral music back into our world.
With quick, subtle fingers, visiting artist Gabriela Martinez cast potent spells through a grand piano. Her dancing fingers mysteriously conjured the eternal notes of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16. Strong magic sprinkled the audience with soft, crystalline raindrops. And aural whirlwinds.
The concert also included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, Op. 35. Its timeless splendor was inspired by the stories of the Arabian Nights.
No wonder those fairy-tale notes were summoned by magicians!
If you’ve never listened to the San Diego Symphony at their outdoor Rady Shell, on San Diego Bay, you’re missing pure magic.
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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!
Wonder, surprise, and plenty of WOW was experienced by those visiting Liberty Station today. That’s because La Jolla Playhouse was in their final day of the 2022 Without Walls Festival!
Among many outdoor performances free to the public was the colorful, kinetic procession TransMythical.
Strange, never-before-seen spirits, nature gods, high priests and mythological creatures appeared from the arches at the edge of Liberty Station’s North Promenade.
As they emerged, they seemed to step tentatively into an unfamiliar world–our world.
The mysterious creatures looked about with wonder. They wandered, gathered, formed a procession.
Appearing beautifully strange–and strangely familiar–the giant puppets and masked characters interacted with the crowd in a very human way. But then–all elemental myths are composed by us human types–right?
During the performance a baby deer was born.
The mythical creatures and we humans all looked on with wonder. The fawn was greeted with happiness.
The tiny deer looked about our shared world with newly opened eyes.
These strangely wonderful myths were brought to life by the San Diego-based Animal Cracker Conspiracy!
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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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