Tag Archives: san diego
San Diego: The “Overview Tour”
I love the opportunity to show people around this fine fine city. There’s never a doubt that they’ll leave without desiring to come back. so today I had the opportunity to bring a consultant for my company around the great city of SD. This was his first time in California so I had to give him the big picture. What a day!
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I dub this the “Overview tour”. feel free to share and expand on the list!
- UC San Diego: turned out to be admit day so tons of student tours and colorful balloons. campus sure cleans up well!
- La Jolla Shores: gots to see the beaches. scenic route from UCSD to shores is truly a breath-taking view. stopped by some multi-million dollar homes on the way down.
- Mt. Soledad: best vantage point in northern San Diego
- Scenic drive down Bird Rock, Mission Bay
- Mitch’s seafood (Point Loma): yelpers go to to Point Loma Seafood. locals go to Mitch’s. added bonus that this week is burger week! $5 burgers all week long. Blue cheese bacon burger and crab poutine. (www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/burgerweek for complete listings)
- Pt. Loma lighthouse: best vantage point in southern San Diego. Coronado island, downtown, harbour island views and glimpses of Mexico too. would have gone to the tidepools if there were kids.
- Scenic drive through downtown: drive through harbor island, shelter island, SD convention center, and gas lamp district
- Petco Park: this is a favorite spot of mine to bring visiting friends because it’s one of the few stadiums that lets people inside when there isn’t a game that day. BUT! on this day it was SD Padres fan fest and they had a free exhibition game against a Mexico City team. Totally unplanned. What better way to introduce America’s favorite past time than from behind home plate?!
- Stone Brewery: SD’s popular brewery with custom flight selections. IPA, Imperial stout, and a ruination. people sure seem to love their beers. fun for them. i like to people watch.
- Balboa Park: speaks for itself…just go.
- El Zarape: icing on the cake. 2 things one has to try in SD…seafood and mexican food. depending on your audience you go the greasy goodness route (Tacos El Gordo) or the clean and healthy route (El Zarape on Park Blvd. not Adams Ave). This place had great veggie options for vegetarians and 99 cent fish tacos all day every day for me!
San Diego Comic Con 2014
An interesting comic con. A year after missing out because of a trip to Singapore, I was back, thanks again to San Diego’s FM radio 94.1 comic con correspondent Dexter Odani! The layout this year was all kinds of weird and there were definitely a lot more displays outside of the convention than previous years. Companies took huge booths outside the convention center to feature Constantine, Black List, Assassin’s Creed, Game of Thrones, and much more. Inside the convention hall the summer hollywood movie blockbusters no longer held center square and they really separated the games from the comics from the movies this year.
As always the cosplayers came out in full swing, even in pretty hot heat. Super impressed! At the end of the day, I came out of the convention to check out the zombie walk and catch up with some coworkers. Long day but always fun to people watch!
Biolegend Party at SeaWorld
Thanks to A.Lee and A.Chen for inviting me to tag along their company party!
3 Sisters Waterfalls Hike
Descanso, California
Distance: 4 miles
3 sisters falls is a great workout! For a hilarious read, check out the yelp reviews (here) and you’ll find the largest variance in experiences. Some range from “this was so easy” to “this was so intense a few guys had to get helicoptered out!”
This hike has it all, it’s part hike, part sliding, and part rock climbing. It starts out with one path but halfway through there are many routes to the falls and it becomes a mini choose-your-own adventure! Do you cross the stream or do you continue along the same side? Do you jump over to the huge rocks or do you find a safer route? Should you brush against those 3 leafed branches that look an awful lot like poison oak?
At the end is a pretty neat but kind of smaller-than-in-real-life-than-pictures waterfalls. It’s a good time to go right now just as the rains have come through a few weeks back and the springs are gushing with water. A few months later and I hear the springs dry down to a trickle.
There are portions of this hike that are so steep you really need shoes with some type of grip. That or you could resort to sliding on your butt because for those portions, you don’t really hike down, you control slide down. There’s nothing scarier than having someone behind you with that slipping sound!
When you get to the falls, the water is frigid, even if it’s pretty hot. You could attempt to slide down the waterfalls but the bottom pools are so shallow you’re really risking some broken bones. so yeah. not as fun for water as the devils punch bowl hike but still a fun workout!
There were points where I legitimately felt someone could get dangerously hurt. It’s amazing there aren’t more accidents up there but if you’re safe, know your physical boundaries, and don’t try to impress everyone insight…it’s a decent adventure.
It’s called 3 sisters falls for a reason and after you get to the first falls you need to do some mild rock climbing and slight more dangerous maneuvering to get to the 2nd and the 3rd. Above is the 2nd sister.
Here’s where my fear of heights really started tingling and almost got me caught in a bad position. Some guys took my phone over to the waters edge and snapped the following shot. Don’t know how people can get so close to the edge and not be afraid…crazy. The view from atop the 3rd sister.
San Diego Comic Con: Walking Dead Experience
Couples that survive zombie apocalypses together stay together…or something like that. J and K are getting married this coming weekend and to prepare for all that craziness they did the “Walking Dead Experience” with a few friends. It’s essentially a zombie run through a deserted Petco Park (home to the SD Padres). The course covers 1.5 miles, there are huge portions of straight up sprinting for you life, dodging zombies, clearing obstacles…this was no joke, real blood was spilt! It took them ~35 mins to finish.
At the end of the course is an inspection zone; all survivors are screened and any that infected (touched by zombies) are quarantined and dealt with.
Their experience was recorded on a GoPro and I edited it down to a 8 min exhilarating ride. Didn’t ask permission from J yet actually, so I might take this down later. In the mean time. Enjoy!
San Diego Comic Con 2012 highlights
press left/right to scroll through image gallery
Another year of comic con craziness. After going last year and feeling entirely overwhelmed by the sensory overload of the glitz and the glamor, this year was much more manageable. Over the last few years my interest in comics have steadily risin and since last year’s comic con has expanded from web comics and graphic novels to tv shows.
It’s definitely more fun to attend comic con with a few things that you really want to see but the real joy of it all is seeing such excitement and passion. Granted, sometimes it overflows into weirdness but on the whole a lot of these people are really super fans. the most enjoyable part of comic con has got to be people watching and the costumes.
Thanks Dex for hookin’ it up again this year!
San Diego’s Bioluminescent waves aka Red Tide
La Jolla Scripps Pier: 35mm, ISO 200, f/2, 20 sec
La Jolla SIO dolphin migration: 50mm, ISO 200, f/1.8, 25 sec
Torrey Pines Beach: 18mm, ISO 400, f/3.5, 30 sec
Solana Beach: 20mm, ISO 200, f/3.5, 30 sec
Solana Beach: 20mm, ISO 6400, f/3.5, 1 sec
Solana Beach: 20mm, ISO 6400, f/3.5, 1 sec
San Diego Black Out
- light paintings by J.Chen, E.Koo, J.Lee, R.Moy
The power outage grounded my flight home so I’m in SD for another night. No electricy, no problem. It’s play time!
Mother’s Day Weekend: the Prado
Hi Mom,
It takes a special person to raise a child, and L and I have had front row seats to a very special mom for a very long time. We can only hope that our actions display how much we appreciate what you do.
To borrow a line from a great lyricist, “For a lifetime of service in the name of love, we wanna say THANK YOU”.
Love,
L & L.Hui
This weekend highlighted for me the full range of who mom is. The funny and quirky things she does including bringing down a huge sack of rice for my sister and oranges from our back yard. That stuff isn’t light. Demanding my car be washed despite 100% chance of rain in the afternoon (which I did…and yes it did rain). To scrubbing down my whole house because…frankly, she’s a clean freak. yup that’s my mom! I find that in the slightest ways that’s rubbed off on me. I’m cleaner, healthier, and live a far better life because of her.
She’s got that old school edge to her that’s unmistakable when she means business. Yet a split second later she can joke with the best of them. She comes from a strong line of women and I see that being carried on in my sister. Young gunners beware. She’s got great command of the English language but still blushes when prompted to speak. She’s got such a wealth of knowledge but submits to the authority of the Word. Yup, that’s my mom =D
This was a great weekend!
(left) rib eye (center) seafood paella (right) braised short rib
