Busy weekend - Visiting Downtown and Bicycling

This weekend was my second weekends in San Diego. Jason, Ethan, Brennan and I went playing "laser tag" last weekend. It is a really fun game, we used laser gun attack others to get points. Every player have to wear a special cloths that has many sensors on it, so the computer know who has been shot. We played the game in a dark room, it has many walls so the player can hide and not to be attacked. After playing 3 games, everyone were all very tired, but it was really fun!

Having dinner at Coronado bay, San Diego this weekend.

We are not that crazy playing this weekend. Since my host mom, Karen, had to work on Saturday, we did not go anywhere too far. We went to some stores with my host dad, Jason. One of these stores was a pet store. Since I am in San Diego, a coastal city, there are many fish in the pet store. And there are some hamster and guinea pigs that attracted us, they are all so cute! We then went to a electronic store named "Best Buy", it is one of my favorite stores, I never been to Best Buy in America, but in China. I saw many electronic devices that are not sell in Taiwan, such as Chromebook and Wii U. I was really excited walking through the whole store, because there have too many things that I had only saw on the internet, but now I can actual touch it and try it! When I was trying Google's new Nexus 7, something happened that was so interesting, I heard a family speaking Mandarin, and it was Taiwanese accent Mandarin! But actually this is not special since I am in California, it is a very international place.

At the pet store

Cute!

Microsoft Surface

Google Chromebook

LEAP motion. Actually I did not know that it has sells in store, I thought that I can only buy in on internet.

Blue HTC One. - HTC is a brand from Taiwan. I seems this blue one is the Best Buy special edition!

Wii U

After walking around Best Buy, we went to a bookstore. This was my first time visiting a real bookstore in USA. This bookstore is pretty big, it have many sections, from novel to Computer language, everything. First I tried to find some novels that I had read in Mandarin. And guess what! I accidentally found an Chinese-learning book called "Chinese for Dummies", it was so funny since those Chinese words and sentences in that book is all very easy to me, it is really for "Dummies"! I then went to the "Computer etc." section, although people now can learn almost every thing about computer on internet, it is still fun to take a look at those English tutorial books. Next to those computer books, it is "Travel" section, I came up an idea that I can find Taiwan's travel book. And I really found it, everything inside is English, it feels so strange! I also found the skyscraper "Taipei 101" in a book called "Tallest buildings in the world", I am so proud that my country has the world second tallest building!

The bookstore

Chinese-learning book

Computer books

The book that I always wanted to buy! Now I found it in bookstore!

International Travel Books

Taiwan!

Taipei 101 in the book "Tallest buildings in the world"

I also miss South Dakota!

I went riding bikes with Jason and Ethan around neighborhoods on Sunday morning, the weather was really nice on Sunday morning, actually, it was a little bit hot with the sunshine. This was my first time looking around the 4S Ranch, the 4S community is pretty big, but there has no many store in it, so Jason showed me how to get to the 4S common, a place which has bank and supermarkets, just in case if I need anything. Since 4S Ranch is located on a small hill, sometime it was tired to climb those ramp by the bike. But we still made it!

After taking a rest at home, we leave home at 4 o'clock and headed to downtown San Diego to have dinner and watch the San Diego Bay Parade of Lights. I was really excited, since I love city and buildings! There are always many vehicles on the highway, unlike Taiwan, they all drive very fast, so driving on highway was pretty stimulating. from 4S to downtown is a 30 minutes drive, we passed a famous bridge called "San Diego–Coronado Bridge" on the way, the view on the bridge was very beautiful, we can see the ocean and buildings in downtown.

We had dinner in Coronado, it is an island across the downtown San Diego. We visit the gift store when waiting for the table of restaurant, there have many gifts about San Diego, California, from magnet to t-shirt, I bought some postcards to send back to Taiwan. We also walked to the beach, I can clearly see all buildings across, it was so gorgeous! I was soooo excited since it has been at least 3 months that I did not see high buildings. We are very lucky that the weather was very nice, with the sea breeze, it was not too cold, and not too hot, just perfect for us to have dinner in the restaurant without roof.

Me // Ethan

So beautiful!

The gift store

The place where we have dinner

Downtown San Diego!

Brennan // Me // Ethan

The restaurant we ate in was called "Village Pizzeria", it is just next to the bay, I think it might has the best view in all restaurants. I can see the bay and buildings from my seat, feels just like having a romantic dinner in Paris! I ordered an 10" pizza, it taste very good, with the beautiful view, this night was absolutely fantastic! We then went back to downtown San Diego to watch the light show since boats would not come to Coronado until 7:30.

The sky was getting darker...

Downtown San Diego city was beautiful at night, it has a totally different view than afternoon. I saw many hotels buildings, Hilton Hotels, Four Points Hotels, and my favorite W Hotel. It seems San Diego is a really good place for vacation. Jason drop Karen, boys and me off at the bay, by the time we arrived, there were already many people standing there watching all boats with light decorations. All boats in the parade are private boats, people own those boats and put light decorating on it. It was pretty interesting watching all boats with different decorations. While watch the parade, I heard people speaking all kinds of languages, but that is no English. California is a really international place...

Downtown San Diego at night

Yeah! We were in downtown!

See! Buildings!

Boats

They were sitting on the roof watching the parade

He headed home at 7 o'clock although the parade have not ended. This weekend was very special and unforgettable, since it was my first time visiting city in America!