A unique Valentine’s Tree greets customers inside Valentine’s Mexican Food in downtown San Diego!
At first glance one might assume it’s a Christmas Tree, but decorated entirely with red tinsel, ribbons, crafted roses and glittering ornaments. With a closer look the truth is revealed. The tree is wrapped with Love!
Chinese New Year is being celebrated this weekend with a festival in downtown San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. 2025 is the Year of the Snake!
The 42nd Annual San Diego Chinese New Year Fair is a free cultural event taking place along two city blocks by the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum. The food, entertainment, lion dancing and more can be found at the corner of Third Avenue and J Street–the center of San Diego’s Asian Pacific Thematic Historic District.
I’ve been under the weather the last couple days, but I found the energy today to walk down from Cortez Hill to experience a little bit of the fun. I snapped these photos.
A historical plaque can be found in front of the Carlsbad by the Sea Retirement Community. I noticed it during my last walk up Carlsbad Boulevard.
Here’s a photo:
The plaque reads:
CARLSBAD BY THE SEA RETIREMENT COMMUNITY
Dedicated June 20, 1998
In 1881, Captain John A. Frazier, a homesteader, purchased 127 acres of oceanfront land for $1200. While drilling for drinking water in 1884, Frazier tapped into an underground mineral spring. He built a 510 foot welltower and began promoting the water’s healing properties to passing travelers on the Southern California Railroad. The site became known as “Frazier’s Station”. In 1886 Gerhard Schutte and Samuel Church Smith purchased the land and renamed it “Carlsbad” with the intention of building a health resort. In 1929, after the paving of nearby Highway 101, construction began on the Spanish-Revival style “California-Carlsbad Mineral Springs Hotel” on this site. By 1939, the spa functions had ceased and the hotel changed owners several times. In 1957, Lutheran Services of San Diego purchased and re-opened the hotel as a retirement community. California Lutheran Homes acquired the community in 1964. The original building was demolished in 1996 to complete an expansion and modernization of the retirement community. The front facade has been reconstructed by California Lutheran Homes and Community Services as a replica of the original “California Carlsbad Mineral Springs Hotel.” A time capsule, buried behind this monument, will be opened 50 years from the ground breaking in October of 2046.
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Do you play piano? Head over to the Oceanside Museum of Art, sit down at this very cool hand-painted instrument, and tickle the ivories!
I saw this piano during my last visit to the museum. It has a name: Henri. I believe it’s named after French pianist Henri Herbert.
Henri was painted by local artist Rene Cosby. It’s the result of the Oceanside Art Piano Project and a sponsorship by the Oceanside Cultural Arts Foundation.
There’s a great detailed article concerning this first public piano in Oceanside. To read it, click here!
(Back in 2016, the San Diego Symphony placed ten uniquely decorated pianos around San Diego for the public to play. Most of those pianos have disappeared, but you can see the photographs that I took by clicking here.)
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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 X.
In the darkness long before sunrise, downtown San Diego sleeps.
I often walk the city streets in the very early morning, when practically nobody is about. There are those times when I have to catch the day’s very first trolley. It can be a strange almost eerie experience. The stillness. The silence.
Here are some photographs I’ve taken during recent night walks.
There are sudden visions behind windows, on sidewalks, rising into the black sky.
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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 X.
Look for this surprising artwork in Point Loma, on the southwest side of Liberty Station’s Dorothea Laub Music & Arts Center, as you head from Rosecrans Street down Roosevelt Road.
Love it!
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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 X.
San Diego Tết Festival 2025 is being held all this weekend at Liberty Station. The cultural event celebrating Lunar New Year is free and a whole lot of fun! It’s the Year of the Wood Snake!
The big annual festival is a production of the Vietnamese American Youth Alliance. (In past years, this Tết Festival has been held in Mira Mesa. I went in 2017 and posted photos here.)
As the festival began late in the morning today–Saturday–excited families converged on the wide grassy field of NTC Park, drawn by tons of food, vendors, community organizations, kids activities, photo opportunities in the Cultural Village, a petting zoo and carnival rides. The main attraction, however, was the entertainment up on the main stage.
To begin the entertainment, Naruwan Taiko brought out their drums and boomed thundering, joyful energy out into the audience. This was soon followed by the day’s Opening Ceremony. Sea Cadets were introduced in front of the stage, a color guard advanced, and the national anthems of Vietnam and the United States were sung powerfully by a talented young lady.
A traditional Invocation and Prayer Ceremony followed. Elder members of the Vietnamese community made offerings and prayers for peace.
Then came politicians on stage, then firecrackers to one side, then Hoa Nghiêm Lion Dance! Much more would follow after I departed. (Would you believe it, five different lion dancing groups perform during the epic three-day festival!)
If you’d like to go to the big festival, here’s their website with all the information!
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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 X.
Until I read a plaque attached to the Carlsbad archway sign, I hadn’t realized the “new” sign was already ten years old.
Starting in the 1930s, people have passed under a Carlsbad sign while traveling through this coastal city. In 2015 the original sign was replaced with a replica–the one you see in my photographs.
The landmark sign straddles Carlsbad Boulevard at Carlsbad Village Drive.
During previous walks, I hadn’t noticed two bronze plaques describing the sign. The plaques are identical. They’re attached to the posts that support the sign on either side of Carlsbad Boulevard.
These photos were taken a week ago.
This sign is a gift from TaylorMade and the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce to celebrate the important role business has played in the City of Carlsbad’s success. It is a replica of the iconic Carlsbad sign installed in the ’30s.
DEDICATED ON JANUARY 8, 2015
(Leading sports equipment manufacturer TaylorMade has its corporate headquarters in Carlsbad.)
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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 X.
I’ve no doubt someone out there has the solution to this mural mystery in Carlsbad!
I’ve done some online research but can find nothing about this old-fashioned mural on a wall beside the 2742 State Street building, which is home to Lofty Coffee Company.
The mural is very faded and partly obscured. I’ve greatly increased the contrast of the above photograph to help bring out the design and colors.
The painted mural centers on the historical Carlsbad train station and shows a steam locomotive on the nearby track. A horse is hitched to a cart advertising Village Limousine Service. Was that an actual business in Carlsbad?
Who created this nostalgic mural? When?
How much of the artwork is hidden by the adjacent building? Why is the standing wall that it was painted on seemingly preserved–the wall appears to be separate from the buildings on either side.
Please leave a comment if you know anything! I’m sure many readers would love to learn more about this engaging old public art!
UPDATE!
James R Dean on my Facebook page stated:
Its our guess that the lady who owned it prior (antique store) would know. The entire building was once all part of same mural. Very cool lady, shes still around. In the early 90s my mom found my toy chest there. (one of 3 made for family by my grandfather). I bought it and later had children who used it. My guess is this was painted in 80s and they left the one to keep some of the art.
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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 X.
Let Go Lightly is a sculpture that stands near the entrance of Mission Valley YMCA in San Diego. It was created by artist Matthew Welter of Kings Beach, California and donated by Bruce Hazard.
I took photographs of the wood carved sculpture during my last visit.
I noticed a plaque set in concrete that provides a description.
The plaque reads:
The sculpture honors the relationship between parent and child. Based upon the tradition of Native American lore, the YMCA’s Indian Guide, Indian Princess and Indian Maiden programs foster this relationship. Let us remember our surviving local Native Americans that still live in the vicinity of the San Diego River. They are known as the Kumeyaay/Diegueño tribe or in their language Ipai/Tipai (meaning people). This sculpture faces in the direction of the spirit of the ancient Kumeyaay village site of Cosoy.
(Google AI explains: In the late 1980s, Native American lobbyists and individuals asked the YMCA to stop using the “Indian” theme because it was often stereotypical. Those old programs, which encouraged fathers to connect with their children, have evolved into Adventure Clubs.)
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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 X.
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