An Eventful Saturday

So I met up with a friend and he was so kind enough to take me on a tour around San Diego because he was shocked that I've never visited many places even though I lived here for almost 5 months already.

A busy day at Balboa Park

We met at Hillcrest where I parked my car and jumped into his and headed towards Balboa Park where we walked admiring all the artistic buildings and even went to a toy-train museum.

Look at how detailed the settings are for the train models.

It was Shakespear week at Balboa Park, so there were many performances and people in costumes in tune with the event.

Besides the San Diego Zoo, the Botanical Gardens is also located within the vacinity of Balboa Park. You can say that Balboa Park is like the Central Park of San Diego as it is to New York. Difference is that Balboa Park is smaller, has many museums and restaurants in it.

After that we headed to the famous and much hyped about Extraordinary Deserts cafe. One word, Delish!

Being the coffee addict that I am, I had Kona coffee which is Hawaiian coffee and it was really fragrant! Highly recommended for discerning coffee enthusiasts!



I like the way the sugar cubes were served. Isn't it cute?

We then decided to go to Old Town San Diego, where the first settlement in San Diego was located. There were alot of Mexican/Spanish influence, not surprising since San Diego is just 20 minutes from the Mexican border. We had Mexican dinner there and called it an eventful Saturday.

Mt. Baden Powell, Elephant's Knees, Mt. Palomar

I'm compiling a few hikes together since my hiking posts never get much feedback... what to do, my hikes are the only interesting things that happen to me in San Diego.

Mt. Baden Powell (April 7th, 2007)

The path was still snowy, and this is one of the most interesting hike because you get to experience a few environments (ie. snow, desert, forest) within one hike.

Me still sleepy before the hike as we woke up around 5am to start our drive to the mountain.

We experienced winter...

... and lush forests on dessert land (hard to understand? You need to see it for yourself)

Shot behind the shot

Gang at the Wally Waldron Limber Pine tree. It's more than 2000 years old!

Our Route up Mt. Baden-Powell

Elephants Knee's (April 14th, 2007)

This is a leisure hike, again, at the Anza-Borrego desert. Elephant's knees was named because of its unique cliff formation in an area which used to be a seabed since we found traces of foscilized shells all over the place. The drive there was as interesting as the hike because we had to use a 4x4 to drive offroad through a Slot Canyon. It was really surreal I tell ya!

A rare sight! The formation of a semi-circle rock wall due to tectonic movements of the earth created this twisted geological wonder!

See those little bumps across the huge mud mountain? Those are the Elephant's knees!

Raindrops preserved in dried mud

Domes of mudhills below from the top of Elephant's Knees.
At the top of Elephant's Knees

We also headed towards the nearby wind caves after descending Elephant's Knees.

Heading towards the windcaves.

The Dessert's sense of scale

"Siesta time is over, you can come up now" =)

This hollow is actually 15 feet above ground. How the heck did I scramble up there???

Ahh... I like me-self in this picture *sounding vain*

Mt. Palomar (April 21st, 2007)
The first hike with an altitude test. The peak is more than 9,000 feet therefore hikers may be subjected to altitude syndromes. For me, I didn't have any problem hiking Mt Palomar though everybody was repeatedly warned of difficulty on this hike. This hike was interesting because there was a snow storm the night before so a huge portion of the hike up was covered in snow. On the descent though, there were no traces of snow as it melted away! Killing two birds with one stone, we made the hike up and down in two very different surroundings.

The gang at the base which was next to the fire station

See the triangle on the sign board. It was supposed to say "YOUR PASS AT WORK". But I guess some really tired and frustrated hiker made it to read "OUR ASS AT WORK"!

Doesn't it look like we're in some fairy wonderland?

Me over the high point

Gang at the top - the Serious shot

Gang at the top - the Irreverent shot