Baseball @ PETCO Park, San Diego

Petco Park is an open-air ballpark in downtown San Diego, California, USA. It opened in 2004, replacing Qualcomm Stadium as the home park of Major League Baseball's San Diego Padres. The stadium is named after the animal and pet supplies retailer Petco, which is based in San Diego and paid for the naming rights.

Besides baseball games, this stadium is also venue for major music & concert even in San Diego. Other event such as the audition of American Idol & Comic con International 2010.

I visit this stadium due to it unique structure and I can't get it in Malaysia. This baseball stadium is quite colourful and with several nice feature.

Rating:7/10(The guided tour of Petco park give you a glimpse of what is inside this baseball stadium. You get to know some history and some of the VIP area from this tour. However this tour has become a bit commercialize and the fee charged is a bit expensive as the visitor to the tour need to buy a game ticket as well. Overall, be prepared to spend at least USD21 for the visit).



Sunny day at Petco Park. The boys are having training session here.

Viewing the stadium from the top.

Home board.

Me with Petco Park.

San Diego Padres. The home team of Petco Stadium.

Petco Park Stadium.

Have to buy two ticket. One is for the stadium tour while another is for the baseball event.

They have VIP lounge which display the history of the San Diego Padres team.


The VIP is treated very well here. They pay huge amount of membership fee here.

Place for the VIP to have their meal.

Sony home plate club is the name of the VIP club.

Baseball game is going to start. They start giving out T-Shirt to all the participants.

This is how the T-Shirt look like.

Public transport:
San Diego trolley 12th & Imperial Transit Center.

Address:
19 Tony Gwynn Drive
San Diego, California, USA

Grand Central Cafe @ Downtown, San Diego

Grand Central Cafe located at the ground floor of the hotel that I stayed in San Diego. The cafe provides very good breakfast and the price is reasonable. I order a omelette set which turn out to be quite good. Besides that, they have sandwiches, fruits with cereal, hotcake & Mexican meal set.

Taste:9/10(Delicious. Good French toast and great hot chocolate).
Price:6/10(Moderate. The meal shown below priced at USD10.00)


Well done French toast with scramble eggs & sausages.

Hot chocolate with cream.


The environment in the cafe.

This is where the cafe located. Below 500 West hotel.

Address:
500 West Broadway San Diego, CA 92101-3506
(619) 234-2233

World Famous San Diego Zoo

San Diego Zoo is among the most famous zoo in the world due to its extensive research on animals, abundance species in the zoo compound, home to 2 giant pandas, polar bears and Skyfari which is a cable car to look the thru the zoo from the sky. This was featured in Madagascar animation movie where a group of animals thinking that they were in San Diego Zoo in California. Being located in San Diego, this zoon don't suffer much of weather change as this area is always hot and dry. Even during winter, the temperature seldom drop below 10 C. Initially, I was thinking whether I want to go to the zoo as the entrance fee is quite steep. At USD40 for a daily pass, it was my most expensive entrance fee for my USA trip. However considering the huge number of animals that they have and the ability to view the giant pandas in action, I finally decided to enter the zoo. Plus, there not many zoo in the world which have cable car on top of the zoo. Anyway, I am quite satisfied with the animal display here as all the animals were well breed and almost 75% open concept. On the giraffe display, the animal is so near to the visitor. As a rule of thumb, please allow three hours to visit this zoo.


San Diego Zoo.

My ticket.

Koala bear.

Llama.

Lion.

Fossil sample.



Skyfari cable car. You can take as many times that you want and its included in your entrance ticket.

Bus around the zoo. Its included in your entrance ticket.

Polar bear.

Red panda.

The cute giant panda.

Giraffe.

Me with panda souvenir.

Address:
Balboa Park, San Diego, California, USA

Transport:
Take the trolley to City college station. Then take bus route 7 to Balboa Park. The zoo is located within Balboa Park area. Press the bell when approaching the zoo.

USS Midway Museum @ San Diego

This former war ship is a popular tourist spot in San Diego. It is on the top spot on Trip Advisor. USS Midway was an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. It plays an important role during the Vietnam War and in Operation Desert Storm, she is currently a museum ship at the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum, in San Diego, California. The aircraft collection on the top deck on the ship is amazing with the display of real war aircraft. On the bottom deck, you can see the display showing the life as war soldiers. They open from 10am to 5pm. I am quite rush on my last day in San Diego to catch the view of this museum. Fortunately I am able to make it and have a speedy walk-thru of the museum in 90 minutes before they closed.

Admission fee:
$18 adults
$15 seniors (62+) and students (with valid ID)
$10 retired military (with valid ID)
$10 youth (ages 6-17)

They also provide the audio tour guide which is very useful if you wanted to know about a particular item.

The things shown on the bottom two decks:
1. Commander room.
2. Resting place/living room.
3. Meal place with is separate between clean soldiers and dirty soldiers(just back from war).
4. How the meal being prepared.
5. What is their rank
6. Some war planes display.


Yahoo! I got the ticket.

Welcoming the visitors.

My audio guide. Pretty useful though.

Me on the aircraft.

Enjoy the aircraft display below:










Huge space in the vessel.

Control tower.

You can get the glimpse view of San Diego.

Space is quite limited in the lower deck.

Commander office in the lower deck.

Address:
910 North Harbor Drive San Diego, CA 92101-5811