Tag: morning

Morning at the International Dragon Boat Race!

Today is the second and final day of the 11th Annual San Diego International Dragon Boat Race. Lots of action can be seen out on Mission Bay!

Enthusiastic teams from across the nation (including Southern and Northern California, Nevada, Arizona, Minnesota and New York) plus international teams (I noted Vancouver, Canada) have come together on this sunny San Diego weekend to race in traditional dragon boats.

I arrived at the event in the early morning just as things were getting started. Team members were stretching and warming up, the boat captains were having their meeting, and then the action began!

As the first boats paddled out to the starting line, just beyond the dock of the San Diego Mission Bay Resort, a group of Scouts presented the colors for the National Anthem.

Then here came the dragon boats, each team furiously paddling to the beat of a big drum!

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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!

Morning walk before Comic-Con Preview Night!

Are you going to Comic-Con this year? If so, prepare to have lots of fun!

I walked around downtown San Diego this morning, Wednesday, the day of Comic-Con Preview Night. Most of the following photos were taken in the vicinity of the San Diego Convention Center or Petco Park.

Most offsites are approaching completion, but it looks like a few are still just setting up in the Interactive Zone at Petco Park. It’s impressive how quickly various activations are assembled and readied for the public with just hours to go.

I’ve already photographed tons of stuff on walks during the past few days. Here’s some new discoveries I noticed this morning…

Krapopolis graphics are now all over the place at the FOX offsite, which includes a big slide!

The Bandai offsite near the Marriott Marina now has lots of huge action figures providing awesome Dragon Ball photo opportunities!

Comic-Con attendees will be soon be lining up along the bayfront, even camping overnight to get good spots for favorite panels and exclusives.

The IMDb boat has returned to Comic-Con. A good place to watch for Hollywood celebrities crossing over from the convention center for interviews.

Willard R. Abbott Public School has appeared at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront’s Promenade Plaza! The offsite promotes the ABC mockumentary television series Abbott Elementary.

Someone has a swag bag, walking by the big FX offsite. Most offsite activations open tomorrow, Thursday.

Here I am walking over the Harbor Drive pedestrian bridge.

The Lexus Premier Lot by Petco Park is filling up with activations for the Interactive Zone. Those campsite tents below are Pinecone Trooper Pete’s Friend Zone. It promotes the CBS show Ghosts.

Nintendo Switch will have a lot of cool video games and stuff, too.

A cool graphic. Mario Strikers: Battle League.

And here’s Kirby and the Forgotten Land.

These friendly guys set up by the sidewalk early with great comic books! I got a few!

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!

Cars and Coffee outside the Automotive Museum!

Today is the third Sunday of the month. What makes that special in Balboa Park? This morning the San Diego Automotive Museum hosted their monthly Cars and Coffee event!

Dozens of cool cars, of every sort, pulled into the museum’s front parking lot by 7:30 am. Auto enthusiasts socialized, shared stories and looked at rows and rows of polished beauties.

I walked about and was amazed by the popularity of this event!

Check it out!

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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 many colors of a living city.

The life of any city is endlessly complex and interesting. The colors one encounters reflect this truth.

Early in the morning I walked around downtown San Diego–primarily through Little Italy and the Columbia District. Then in the evening I walked down Broadway.

My camera found these colors…

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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!

Walking down from Cortez Hill on a shining morning.

The light early this morning was magical.

A few minutes after sunrise, I walked from the top of Cortez Hill south into the heart of downtown San Diego.

Many of these photographs were taken as I turned my camera west. Look at all the golden reflections!

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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!

Visions and contrasts in downtown San Diego.

The ordinary . . . the bizarre.

The familiar . . . the dreamlike.

Countless intersecting paths down the same streets.

Turned corners, reflections, glimpses, mysteries.

The complexity of living.

Happiness . . . despair.

You will encounter many complex visions and contrasts when walking through downtown San Diego. Which is what I did yesterday morning.

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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!

Red-tailed hawks and fog in Balboa Park.

This morning I walked from downtown San Diego to Balboa Park, hoping to capture some interesting fog photographs.

As it turned out, most of my photos were of red-tailed hawks!

I observed three of them from the Cabrillo Bridge.

Anyone who walks into Balboa Park from the west side should keep their eyes peeled for hawks. They like to perch in the trees above the archery range or the slope of the West Mesa overlooking State Route 163.

I often hear the distinctive cry of red-tailed hawks near the eucalyptus trees west of the California Tower. Once or twice in the past I’ve seen them perched on the tower!

I managed to get a few decent photos with my little camera. You can see two hawks in the final image!

From the Cabrillo Bridge I also took a photograph of foggy downtown San Diego in the distance.

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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!

Autumn morning harvest in Little Italy.

Early this morning I walked through Little Italy hoping to capture some colorful Thanksgiving photos.

I found no turkeys, but I did encounter many pumpkins, a friendly scarecrow, and beautifully changing leaves.

Please enjoy this small harvest of photos collected on a crisp autumn morning…

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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!

Swarming gulls, Horton’s new skin, and a relic.

I observed a few interesting things in downtown San Diego during my morning walk.

First, a parking lot in East Village was swarming with hundreds of seagulls. Someone was tossing the gulls a large quantity of crumbs. It was quite a spectacle, as you can see in my photographs.

Of course, feeding birds downtown makes them more of a potential nuisance. And the people who’d parked nearby might have something to say…

Next, as I walked past old Horton Plaza, I noticed its redevelopment is progressing right along. The exterior of the now enlarged building at the corner of G Street and 1st Avenue, former home of a Nordstrom department store, has some new skin!

If you want to see how the project appeared about a year ago, with the once popular shopping mall stripped and gutted, click here!

If you want to see how the new mixed-use high-tech downtown campus will appear when finished, click here!

Finally, check out the following old relic.

How many pay phones remain in the city? I never see them anymore. I did find one here, at the Convention Center trolley station, next to a brand new high-tech PRONTO ticket machine!

Put that pay phone in a museum!

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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!

County ceremony at Day of the Dead altar.

This morning I walked down to the San Diego County Administration Building to view their Day of the Dead altar. Like the one last year, this new altar on some outdoor steps remembers those who’ve died from COVID-19.

When I arrived a gentleman was setting up additional luminarias and flowers.

Baltazar Hernandez, who is also Vice President of the City Heights Día de los Muertos, was busy making the altar more beautiful and meaningful.

He informed me there would be a special ceremony in the evening, so I returned to the County Administration Building after work.

The ceremony began with a blessing of the altar by Baltazar, who wore Danza Azteca garb. A few short speeches followed.

The most powerful words were spoken by someone who had tragically lost a loved one. She told everyone: “That empty place that you have in your heart–fill it with love.”

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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!