SEAPORT VILLAGE

Ahh...Seaport Village. It's one of my favorite places in San Diego. Almost every time my family and I decide to go to SD, it's a trip to Seaport Village. Now that I've been there so many times and have spent so many hours there, there's nothing really new for me to see (but it's especially worth a couple of hours of your time if you've never been there before). Even so, what I think is so great about this place is just the fact that you're there. Every time I'm in Seaport Village, I feel like I'm surrounded with such positive energy. It's a great place to walk around, shop, and dine on the waterfront. My two favorite places to eat are the Greek Island Cafe and Seaport Grill. As for a break from walking around, I love sitting on a wooden bench placed in front of the little ponds, watching the ducks swim while feeling the cool sea breeze on my skin. There is also an antique carousel, built in 1895, that I find interesting and you can ride for $3. I don't like to ride it, I just like to look at it...is that weird?  You may also see people dressed up walking along the waterfront and will probably see someone balancing stacked rocks in such a bizarre way...I don't know how they do it.

Seaport Village at night is really pretty. I love how the restaurants and shops are all lit up at night with little light bulbs that remind me so much like Christmas lights. Sometime during the day we got cheesecake at The Cheesecake Factory. A few cheesecakes were ordered to split, but since I don't eat cheesecake, I just sat and enjoyed myself, although the oreo one did look good. It was once on my bucket list to try every single flavor of cheesecake on their menu, but ironically enough, it was there that I discovered I don't like cheesecake, so I gave up on that. Too sweet maybe? I don't know. Cheesecake just isn't my thing.

CORONADO ISLAND

San Diego is always a pleasure to visit, yet it is a place I feel I don't get to visit enough. And even after as many times as I've been there, I still have not been able to see half of what San Diego has to offer. We usually only drive down there to visit Seaport Village, the San Diego Zoo, or on the rare occasions when we fly out of the San Diego airport (we normally choose LAX but sometimes San Diego is just so much cheaper). This past Sunday, however, some family members from Tennessee came down to visit, and so the only logical thing to do was to head down to San Diego to catch up and show them around the area! For years now, and especially after seeing Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, I have wanted to visit Coronado Island, specifically Hotel del Coronado. So I was thrilled that that was the very first thing we did!

San Diego is one of those places where you can spend all day doing one activity. When we go to Seaport Village, my family will literally be there all day and we'll wind up running out of time and not being able to do anything else. When we go to Balboa Park, we're there all day. So Sunday, when we went to the beautiful Hotel Coronado, we had to keep track of time so we could take our Tennesseans to more than just one neat place in San Diego...or you know, we would have been in Coronado all day. As I wasn't actually vacationing there, (but let's face it that would have been nice), I cannot give a full review, however from what I have seen, it is safe to say that the hotel was one of the nicest I have ever been to. The interior is decorated with chandeliers, Victorian-themed furnishing, and filled with luxury shops, spas, bakery, restaurants, and more. I also love how the hotel is on the beach. Perfect for a summer vacation! I would love to stay the weekend at this hotel one day: relax on the beach, visit the spa, drive down around the island and nearby San Diego attractions, have my own little getaway.

Oh and apparently it's haunted? Spooky.

 

SAN DIEGO | PHOTO DIARY

San Diego is one of my favorite places to visit in California, and with it being two hours away from where I live, I usually don't get to visit. So Friday after school, I was so excited to spend the weekend there with my family for my father's company work trip. The company paid for all employees and their families hotel rooms and dinner. We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel in the Gaslamp District, which is really more of a party place. We even had our own bar in our hotel room! I really enjoyed the Gaslamp Quarter during the nighttime. Everyone everywhere was out with their friends or families, walking around, music so loud it vibrates your body, hitting the clubs and happy hour, enjoying an evening dinner, city lights, and just soaking up the night life of San Diego. It was good vibes all around, except if you were stuck in traffic.

On Saturday, my father had meetings half the day at the hotel. Rather than passing the time in the roof-top pool, my sisters, step-mom, and myself decided we would explore the Gaslamp District instead. We ate breakfast at the most modern IHOP I have ever been to. And I know at the International House of Pancakes it's only reasonable to get their pancakes - which are AMAZING - but for some reason I always opt for their chicken strips and fries. Afterwards, we came across a Starbucks and we couldn't pass up a cold drink. I ordered a Caramel Frappuccino which was just what I needed on this hot day! The sun was so hot and strong, I literally had to keep reapplying my sunscreen and stay in the shade as much as possible. After Starbucks, we walked further and found a museum of the William Heath Davis house, supposedly a haunted house, so of course we had to take a look inside. Nothing spooky, but very interesting. It was built in 1850 and is the oldest house in the Gaslamp Quarter. It was like a trip back into the Victorian Era.

After my father finished his meetings, we all went on a San Diego tour, which included a stop at my two favorite places in San Diego: Balboa Park and Seaport Village. After the tour, we ate out at the Hard Rock Café.

We left noon on Sunday and ate lunch at Wings n' Things. I got the 'hot' buffalo wings and they were so hot my nose was running and my eyes and ears were burning! After I stopped crying (not really), we went to Torrey Pines beach, also in San Diego. My dad has a rule that no one can go in the water past their ankles. Joking of course, but he always likes to enforce it to try and make us think he's serious. So my sister and I thought we'd "misbehave" and went in up to our hips. We got a sarcastic talkin' to afterwards.