I was assigned to go to San Diego for work last week, and we were set up in a swanky hotel called the Westgate. And because we are in the business of producing conferences, my colleagues and I were able to feast on the hotel's fantastic lunches in an outdoor terrace. One lunch menu, for example, consisted of Greek Salad, NY Strip Steak, and Apple Strudel. The food was not only delicious, but it was also great to have been waited on like that after working hard for a conference.
The hotel was absolutely gorgeous. I'm not one to compliment, but I had never said the word "lovely" so many times in a day before! Downtown San Diego on its own is a fantastic place with perfect whether, but once you step into the Westgate, you feel like you are in the French Renaissance, and you feel like any minute, you'll meet the Three Musketeers or something.
After a long day of talking with delegates and speakers, my colleauges, Joanna and Jonathan, and I decided to have dinner. We ate at a tex-mex restaurant at the far end of the Gaslamp Quarter (I've forgotten the name). The food was pretty good, but nothing out of the ordinary, really.
What caught Joanna's attention after dinner, though, was a newly-opened ice cream store called Chocolat. Their display of goodies and treats was outstanding! We were having a hard time choosing which flavor we wanted for our scoop! I was particularly torn between their Rhum Chocolat and Hazelnut Chocolat. It's a great thing that Jonathan noticed how the servers were allowing people to get two flavors for one scoop, so I got half Rhum and half Hazelnut!
Click the picture above for their menu in pdf format. Come on! You know you want to!Tuesday was the last full day I was going to be there, so after the conference, I was able to tour the Gaslamp Quarter a little more. It's a quaint shopping and dining area, probably a quarter of the size of Midtown Manhattan, and is walking distance from the Westgate. For a New Yorker, going through every Avenue and Street is a very easy feat. And I did in fact want to go through everything, but when I took a look at the map before I headed out, I realized that the only real activity existed along 5th Avenue.
All in all, going up and down this 5th Avenue is quite different from its NY counterpart. Here, the pace is much slower, people are more laid-back, and the weather is in no way oppressive. If San Diego's 5th Avenue were any longer, and my pockets were deeper, I wouldn't mind strolling up and down and buying little trinkets in every cute shop I'd pass by.
I even spotted a Philippine Library and Museum, which I attempted to go into, only to find out that it was closed. Unfortunately. So with Manila on the brain now, I ended up going into the souvenir shop next door, where I bought shirts and caps for my sister, Dad and Lolo (Grandfather) back home.
At this part of my short trek, I had reached pretty much the end of 5th Avenue, so I decided to head back to the hotel. On the way back, though, I decided to check out Westfield Horton Plaza, which is a mall that looks very similar to some shopping complexes in Manila - Alabang Town Center, Eastwood City, and The Fort (short for Fort Bonifacio Global City). The funniest thing, too, was that while walking around Horton Plaza, there were at least 3 Filipino families that I came across who were speaking to each other in Filipino. It was at this point that I knew I was quite fond of San Diego for its similarities to my hometown, but I was also starting to feel very homesick... 
Homesick... which home, though?
2 comments:
Hopefully we can say that both NY and Manila are 'home'. :)
Lucky ducks! Wish we had that hotel this past week! Thanks for documenting it.
Here's to home in various places!
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