San Diego, CA

San Diego, described by the locals as 'American's finest city.'

San Diego is a beautiful town quite heavily influenced by their neighbouring Mexican amigos! There are Mexican restaurants everywhere, each claiming that they have the best tacos and margaritas in town. We tried two Mexican restaurants in our short stay here and both were somewhat disappointing. We went to the two recommended places but here in the USA they deep fry everything and then drench it with cheese and sauce. I couldn't eat most of the meal which is shown in the photo below, and after I ate my meal, I felt sick for hours. We ended up having to go back to the hotel so I could lie down. The second restaurant was much better cheese and sauce wise. It was more flavoursome and delicious, and the local specialty of fish tacos are pretty good (but not as good as Hawaii).

burrito...makes me sick just looking at it!

San Diego has a small downtown section which revolves around Gaslamp Quarter. It is a hub of restaurants, bars and boutiques. Then, there is Balboa Park. It's situated a little north of downtown and has lots of museums, gardens, performance spaces and a zoo.You can also sit and watch the planes fly in. They fly very low overhead as the airport isn't far from the park. 

Gaslamp Quarter

We went to most of the local downtown sites as we did't have a car and public transport is ridiculous here. It takes forever to get anywhere. You can walk across the trolley/tram tracks at any stop which is a little weird and you can get a 1 day pass for $5.00 which is super cheap. Here in California you can also take your pets anywhere. You can take your pet cat on the tram, or your pet husky on the bus. It's weird, yet SoCal! 

We didn't get to Mission Bay and Beach area which is their main surfing and beach drag. I would have liked to go but having only 2 days in San Diego, we had to miss out on something. They have a little old town section which feels as though you walked into a western movie. The road turns into gravel and there are shops and displays of how life used to be in the 1700/1800's, including blacksmithing and tortilla rolling demonstrations. It was pretty cool to see and there are not many places like this in major cities. 

old town

making tortillas

blacksmith

On Sunday we headed to Sea World. It was super hot and super busy as it's USA labor day weekend. We spent a big chunk of the day there, but I just wanted to see the killer whales. They are beautiful animals. I want to be a trainer and play with them, or the dolphins..either is fine! 

San Diego is starting to feel a lot more like USA - walking outside our hotel you see a massive super highway with Denny's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Macy's, Best Buy and of course Starbucks. Though it's still not quite as flashy as you can imaging New York to be.

That was pretty much our time in San Deigo...Next stop: Vegas baby!