San Diego Rendevous

[vermouthtooth]

I am meeting someone for the first time in San Diego and neither one of us have ever been there. The idea was to pick a spot that neither of us is familiar with so that we could discover the city together. I was wondering if anyone out there is from SD or has spent a lot of time there and could give me some ideas on where to go. Travel guides can be so lame and most of the hot spots are dictated by who advertises and who doesn't. Thanks!

[Craft Forums]

[misspenni]

When are you going to be here? Where at in San Diego? What do you like to do? Are you looking for bars, restaurants, clubs, museums, or??

[sun bear]

i'd go to balboa park, it's not to be missed, so many cool things, museums, pretty gardens, the only thing missing is stores and huge amounts of restaurants, for that you have to go outside the park, but it's a great place to explore, esp the reflecting pool area.

jt

[Morgan]

Oh, I miss San Diego! I went to college at UCSD, so I lived there for about 3 years. Your rendezvous sounds intriguing! Is it a romantic thing, or just a friend? I'm so curious!
I second the Balboa Park suggestion. It's pretty there, & there's the zoo, which is one of the best in the world, if you're interested in that. The beach near La Jolla is nice, I think, & usually has fewer people than the ones in Pacific Beach & Ocean Beach. It's nice to walk around there & watch the sunset if it's nice weather. & there's an aquarium near UCSD in La Jolla, with tidepools & stuff, so you might be able to find those without going to the aquarium, but I'm not sure.
Coranado island is kinda fun. There are some shops & stuff around there, & the Hotel Del Coranado, which is quite famous. There's a cheap ferry that goes from the harbour in down town & back that's kinda fun. There are also some shops around from where it leaves in down town, & there's an old boat museum thing that you can go on if you're interested in that.
Downtown La Jolla is nice, too. There are art galleries, & some swanky shops, & lots of restaurants. A fun one (if it's still there) is Forever Fondue, because Fondue is always fun! Especially the dessert fondue. Yum!
There's also a mission not too far from down town. Old town has some fun stores & good Mexican food. There's a wild animal park in Escondito (I think), about half an hour from San Diego. It's a bit expensive, but if you like animals, you can get a pass to both the zoo & the park. I've never been there, but it's supposed to be cool, & I've always wanted to go! The race tracks at Del Mar are supposed to be fun, too. Hillcrest is a fun area to walk around in, too. It's the gay area (although I really would never have known if somebody didn't tell me!). They have some fun restaurants, like Corvette Diner, which is an old style diner where the servers are rude to you (sounds weird, but it's fun), & Lips, which has crossdresser servers & they put on shows sometimes.
If you pick up a copy of "The Reader," a free magazine that's usually everywhere, they have a lot of coupons for restaurants, & listings of stuff going on.

[pinguino]

the science museum at balboa park is reallllly fun even though its for kids and stuff.

seaport village downtown is really nice too =) relaxing. lots of boats to look at, a christian lassen gallery.. you can walk there from the gaslamp district

gaslamp has all the clubs/resteraunts. lulu's is a coffeeshop across from horton plaza mall that is neat

horton plaza mall was designed by the guy who designed the san marcos women's prison. it is sorta escher-ish and the floors dont make sense. its fun too. the food court has a reallly good bbq place called witichas and its pretty cheap too.

[sun bear]

hah, i never thought of horton plaza as escherish but that's exactly it! I thought it was designed to trap you in the mall, essentially once you're in you have to keep going forward to get out or to the next floor, there's not alot of cross cutting like you can do in a regular mall. I wouldn't be surprised if i saw someone walking upside down on one of the staircases it's so weird! :)

jt

[Morgan]

Seaport village that Pinguino mentioned is where you catch the ferry to Coronado, too. So you can hang out there while you're waiting.
Ahhh, Horton Plaza. I'm getting homesick! I wanna go to San Diego, too! (This post had little point, I just wanted to say that I like SD a lot!)

[craftyspirit]

We go to San Diego every summer and stay at Paradise Point resort - fun, especially when you get a room on the beach. Also, we go to Old Town and they have a really nice outdoor Mexican restaurant with excellent food. We've been going for so long, we don't do much "tourist" stuff, we just hang out at the beach by our room. But that resort is really nice and their food is fantastic, too! My kids have started talking about going again - I told them I'll make the reservations soon.

[sun bear]

I think that mexican restaurant is called the "Casa di bandini" I've never been but I'm told it's excellent and there's something called a "Taco feast" there :)
jt