Second Day in San Diego
By traveltripz on Mar 29, 2008 in San Diego, USA
After reading some of the reviews on the internet about Tijuana we have decided against going there today and instead we went into the Gas Lamp district to have a look around.
Now that we have worked out the bus system, we caught the No. 1 bus right across the road from the hotel and this took us to one of the trolley stations. Unfortunately the bus doesn’t stop at the trolley stop we were going to, 70th Street, on Saturdays and we ended up at the Amaya Drive stop. Here we hopped onto the Orange line trolley and this was a totally new experience from yesterday. The young girl across from us had a radio blaring which she proceeded to sing along to.
Although there are signs everywhere stating that patrons must use earplugs with radios etc, have drinks covered and not put their feet on the seats, a number of the patrons on this line ignored all three instructions.
This line goes through some shopping areas where we saw the 99cent shop, the commercial area, past the cemetary, and less tourist related areas. There is a fair amount of graffiti on the buildings which we didn’t notice on the trip into town using the green line.
The trip on the orange line also takes longer to get to Downtown. We get of at the Gaslamp Quarter which is across from the Convention Centre which is an outstanding looking building, as is much of the development in the Downtown area.
Fifth Ave is cordoned off today and there are stalls set up in the middle of the road selling paintings and bric a brac. We go into the Hard Rock Hotel which was opened last year, to buy some pins for our collections. This is a stunning looking hotel and very close to the water and transport. One of the pins we purchase is a split pin of which one half is the sun and the other is the moon.
We can only get one half of the pin set and have to head off to find the Hard Rock Cafe 5 blocks away to buy the other half. An excellent merchandising ploy on behalf of the Hard Rock Cafe group.
As always the directions are very vague, “It’s 5 blocks away”, with a wave of the hand in a general direction. It is also in 4th Avenue not 5th but we find this out later after we have been unable to find it and have to go to an informtion booth for further directions.
On the way we stop to check out a store that sells clothing where nothing is over $5.99 and although there are some good buys we leave without making a purchase.
After finally finding the Hard Rock Cafe we end up only buying the one pin each, simply because the staff behind the counter are too busy interacting with each other and leave us standing for so long we become disinterested.
Then it’s off to lunch back at Anthony’s Fish Grotto once again. We request a table by the window so that we can look out over San Diego bay. The meal is as delicious as yesterday’s and today we are given the bonus of two delicious rounds of bread with butter that has been mixed with sun dried tomatoes - delicious.
For the return journey we take the blue line trolley and change to the green line at Old Town San Diego then catching the No 1 bus at Amaya Drive which drops us right at the hotel door.
2 Comment(s)
By Jennine on Mar 31, 2008 | Reply
I have been regularly checking in on where you are what you have been up to - sounds like a great adventure - the photo’s are fab
By traveltripz on Apr 4, 2008 | Reply
We are really enjoying the trip Jennine. There is just so much to see and do over here. We are now in Vancouver at the Stargate Convention. Today was the first day and it has been a really interesting experience.