On one of the days before the conference, I decided to visit the USS Midway, a floating museum. It was in use as an aircraft carrier right up until the 90’s.

This is a portion of the ship, on top of which you can see various aircraft.

Inside the ships, every single doorway is raised above the floor somewhat. I assume this is to prevent minor flooding from becoming a major problem!

That’s a lot of controls!

On top, you can see the aircraft up close, and the San Diego skyscrapers in the background on shore.

The control deck is rather huge on top.

I took many photos inside the ship, far too many to post here. Check out my gallery for more photos!

For the first day of the conference, I went to Old Town for lunch with a bunch of ILab students, past and present.

This is the entrance to a market which sells all kinds of things for tourists. I bought a couple of stupid items. One is a small wooden box where a snack comes out of a hole when you press a button. Another is just a plastic eye enclosed in a plastic covering that always looks upwards!

Me and the group sitting at the table. At the very centre of the photo is Nic from Germany, who helped me write a post card to my grandmother’s sister in Germany! I usually write her in English and she gets relatives to translate for her, but this time, it’s actually in German!

Yet another picture of a shop’s wares that I didn’t buy.

A church surrounded by palm trees, and every coloured newspaper box you could imagine.

Mission Bay is where I spent the majority of my time in San Diego. The hotel where I was staying, Paradise Point, is located across the bay from the Hilton, where the conference was taking place.

Paradise Point had a nice location, but it’s lack of any extras makes it hard for me to recommend to anyone. Outgoing toll-free calls and internet usage all require fees on top of the already expensive room rate.

The name isn’t a huge misnomer though. The place does feel like paradise, at least it might if I actually would’ve had lots of time during the days to use the facilities.

I don’t really have any decent pictures of the Hilton grounds, though I did decide to get a bit creative with my camera in my spare time between sessions. This image is a close-up of an orange tree.

Mission Bay at night is quite beautiful when using a long shutter speed. The line of light in the sky is a plane.

I took a few other pictures in Mission Bay including more close-ups and long shutter night shots. Check them out in my gallery!

On San Diego’s waterfront is Seaport Village.

This “village” is a popular tourist destination occupying prime waterfront property in San Diego. It is designed to be a “car free” zone where foot paths, not roads, connect the various shops. It’s a good destination for any tourist looking for gifts and other things.

This is a shop selling lots of colourful things.

This area has some history. Back in 1782, the Spanish buried those who died of scurvey here. Years later, the area was used as a landfill and also a rail yard.

Nowadays, the waterfront is very well developed with high rise hotels acting as a backdrop. It’s a much better use than a landfill would be!

That’s all for now. Check my gallery for my other pictures from San Diego so far. Feel free to leave comments!