Vacation Slide Show

Even though I grew up here in San Diego, I spent the morning doing extremely touristy things. I went to actual museums. This was an attempt to make this feel more vacationy. I don't know about you (although I have my suspicions) but I think it's weird to go on vacation but still feel completely at home as soon as you step out of the hotel.

And that's not some vague déjà vu feeling either; this hotel is connected to a mall (Horton Plaza) I know well. And just two months ago, I was here for the San Diego Comic Con, and I stayed three blocks from here. I know this neighborhood pretty well, is what I'm saying, so I had to act as much like a tourist as I could. Does that make sense? No? Too bad. Let's go!

I started my Friday with a remarkably refreshing swim in the pool. This pool:

It was a cloudy day, but since it's San Diego, it was still fairly warm out. And anyway, the pool was heated. What's odd is that although I've been to this hotel a lot (the San Diego Comic Con hospitality suite and gaming and film rooms used to be here years ago), I never knew it had a pool. It turns out to have been hidden on the third floor, so I guess I can understand why I never tripped over it while walking around the neighborhood.

After my swim, I walked down to the waterfront, walking past the convention center and this place:

That's the Kansas City Barbecue, and it's basically across the street from the convention center. And they're very proud of the fact that (as you'd be able to tell if you could read that plaque on the right) they were the site of the "Sleazy Bar scene" in Top Gun. This is the beginning of a somewhat military theme of my sightseeing of the day (to go with the more obvious nautical theme, which is why I started with a swimming pool), plus since I always encourage people to go here, I thought it would help if I had a picture.

Okay, so I walked a bit more and came to Seaport Village.

Seaport Village is basically a little shopping area that has a certain touristy charm. My family used to come here when I was but a child, possibly because it was the only place in the city to get juggling supplies (the Magic Shop is still there!) and possibly because it has a quirky bookstore:

"Upstart Crow", of course, is a Shakespeare reference (it's actually one of the rare derogatory Shakespeare references!), but it's not really that great a bookstore; it's cramped and hot and full of coffee-shop. But it's neat!

See the ducks? It really is a pleasant place to walk around and shop, as long as you don't mind things like this:

Wow! Did you see that? The shorts that say "San Diego"? The flag-hems on the shirt? I don't know if you can make it out clearly, but the heart on the front is actually parallel rips on the front of the shirt, showing the flag background. I mean, the outfit is actually made of two different layers of clothing so they can have that effect.

Wow.

This is the carousel at Seaport Village. San Diego attractions tend to have a carousel somewhere on the property.

I wanted to take a picture of the bay which Seaport Village is next to, but it was a little hazy out. However, I still think this is a pretty good picture:

Note the military foreshadowing.

Then I wandered around the general Seaport Village area, seeing such sights as:

A license plate, apparently for The Iron Serf, who's not really that terrifying a supervillain. His evil plans are always interrupted by the need to plow the fields for his liege lord.

A storyteller.

A memorial to dead sailors of the past. This is a stone memorial stuck pretty much right next to the sidewalk. "Hello, tourist! Enjoying the weather? Lots of people died here! Have a nice day!"

At this point, I was strolling down the waterfront with the intention of seeing the Star of India. I lived in San Diego for seventeen years, but I never saw this really interesting ship except out the window of a car. That seems like a shame, so I wanted to rectify it.

But on the way there, I saw this:

Hey, that looks like an aircraft carrier! There's nothing so odd about that; San Diego is a Navy town, and I'm right here on the water, and I did just see some sort of military vessel out on the water. Heck, last week was Fleet Week (which I'm kind of glad I missed, because that is a madhouse around here -- I'm kind of sad I'm missing Dia de los Muertos, though which happens pretty much as soon as I leave). But the aircraft that it's actually carrying seem to be kind of random. Plus, it's swarming with civilians.

I walked around to the other side and saw this:

Hey! This is the USS Midway! It's legendary! And it's also the San Diego Aircraft Museum! Well, I'm being a sightseeing tourist anyway, so what the heck . . .

It was a great museum, too. About half of it was devoted to "this is what an aircraft carrier is like for the people stationed on it". So there were things like this:

That's pretty cool, right? I like control rooms. I also like Atomic Safety Precautions:

Yes, try not to smoke during the atomic attack. Also, I like this:

Ooh! A UNIVAC! Now that's cool!

The tour path went down through the engine room and generally through the guts of the ship, spitting you out on the Flight Deck. Up there, there were, of course, various jets and helicopters from the last sixty years. Also, there were a lot of guys in Navy Whites. I kind of got the impression that when people sign up with the navy, they're gently encouraged to go take the Midway tour. Also, there's a Navy gym right next to the Midway, so half of the peple not in uniform are military anyway.

There were also a lot of what I took to be retired Naval personnel, frequently showing their families around and saying things like "Yeah, I spent about fourteen hours a day in that tiny room there."

After awhile, I moved on from the Midway and set out again for the Star of India, which I could see from the Flight Deck. At this point I would like to mention that I did a lot of walking today. The waterfront isn't that close to the hotel, and even just the Midway tour took a lot of walking and climbing steep staircases.

Just before I got to the Star of India, there was this:

That seems like a ripoff, doesn't it? The Navy has the legendary USS Midway, which holds a huge museum and a bunch of flight simulators (which I didn't take pictures of) and all these fighter jets (likewise), and then the Army is represented by a cartoon tugboat? Apparently, that's the Historical Tugboat Museum or something, but I still think the army comes off pretty weak there.

Okay, so I finally got to the Star of India!

It's the centerpiece of the San Diego Maritime Museum, which is, I think, five or six ships. I was most interested in the Star of India itself, as it's so . . . authentic. It's still sailed once a year, you know.

This is the rigging, into which I was not allowed to clamber. What's the point of rigging if you can't clamber in it?

See? The urge to clamber is so ingrained, it merits hand-lettered signs. In the background, you can see a Russian submarine, which is part of the maritime museum. That's neat! Also, it's kind of pathetic that I've never seen it, because up until a couple of years ago, it lived in Seattle and I even walked past it a couple of times.

This, of course, is the Ship's Wheel. If there were someone there with me, I would now own an amusing picture in which I appear to be the captain of the ship. Oh well, maybe next time. Perhaps I shall bring a pirate hat!

Next up: The HMS Surprise!

Originally named the HMS Rose (but still not really that old), it was renamed when they shot Master and Commander on it. Hey! I liked that movie a lot!

I remember the scenes involving these cannons. I have to say, the ship looked a lot bigger in the movie; there's hardly any room in there at all.

This is one of those etched-glass backlit diagrams that you sometimes see in movies set in NORAD or something. I think it's weird to have a period ship diagrammed, but it also looks pretty cool.

Up on deck, the HMS Surprise has a big cannon pointed . . . directly at the Star of India. Wouldn't that make you feel nervous on the Star of India?

After the two sailing ships, I went over to the sub:

I love that! Normally you see signs saying "you must be this tall", not "you must fit through this hole".

The sub was neat, if extremely cramped. I only whanged my knee getting through one of those holes once. Apparently, it spent a lot of its career shadowing the Midway, which is probably easier now that both of them are securely moored.

After the sub, I went back to the hotel (which involved a couple more miles of walking, and I was quite tired). Then I had some food and checked in for JournalCon, which will have its own entry at some point.