The Hero Ship: USS Midway Aircraft Carrier

Today, April 9th, 2014, was the third day of Spring break. Uncle Paul and I decided to visit the USS Midway Museum. According to Wikipedia, The USS Midway Museum is a maritime museum located in downtown San Diego, California at Navy Pier, it consists of the aircraft carrier Midway. We have walked past it or even parked in its parking lot before, but I never actually got on it before, so we think it would be a really interesting place to go. It is just in the downtown area, and people are able to see it from very far away, I think it is definitely a landmark in San Diego.

This picture was taken in the control tower on USS Midway.

Just like yesterday, we dropped off boys and went to The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to have some drinks and read some books before we started heading to Downtown. Again, it was just really nice in the coffee shop, we got a chance to sit back and relax before our “journey” to be started. I ordered double Cappuccino today instead of Latte, I didn’t notice that it will taste that bitter! Fortunately, they have free milks for me to add on the counter, it was just really nice! (This will not happen in Taiwan)

Calling my dad in the coffee shop.

Uncle was reading his new book!

So we started heading to Downtown at about 9:40 AM and arrived there at 10:10, it didn't take long at all! And as usual, it’s around 80 degrees today in San Diego, which is extremely nice. Well, it’s “Just another day in San Diego.” We didn't stop at any places and drove straight to the USS Midway Museum. Since it was weekday today, there were not too many people which is really nice, most of the visitors are either students or visitors from China, which I don't get it because literally 50% of the people I saw on ship are Chinamen (which you know, I don't really like them, they really need to relearn what’s “manner” very badly… Just some personal advice) So anyway, after buying tickets, we started boarding. The USS Midway is just huge! Even boarding requires us to climb a stair of thousand stairs! Haha

Heading to Downtown.

Arrived Downtown!

In front of the entrance of USS Midway.

The entrance.

Huge!

Welcome Aboard!

The first place you'll be after you went aboard is the hangar deck, it is the only deck that is actually indoor. The first things we did after we went aboard was to rent the free audio guide machines (well, actually the real first thing we did was to go to the restrooms...). Renting an audio guide is definitely a must-do thing, not only because it's free to do so, but because it can actually gives you some idea of what you're looking at, it will describe almost every important things on the ship to you, including all the information of planes, the ship history and a lot more.

There are many old airplanes on the hangar deck, visitors are able to sit in it to either experience being a pilot or get a nice picture! They are all from the World War II or the Cold War, and are retired now. Other interesting things on this deck are the paid airplanes/jet flight simulators. People can actually experience how it feels like to drive an airplane or a jet by riding the simulator. In my opinion, all the simulators are pretty professional because they can do 360 degrees rotation! Imagine how scary would be to sit in it!! Haha

The hangar deck.

Uncle Paul!

In the plane.

See how HUGE hangar deck is!

The place where you can rent audio guide machines.

We didn't stay long on the hangar deck because we couldn't wait to go onto the flight deck and see all the cool planes. But before that, we took a quick look of the gift shop and the small Cafe located at the bottom on the ship. There are also some tables of the Cafe on the elevator that used to carry airplanes, it is really cool and nice because the view on there is fantastic. And from the elevator just right outside from the hangar deck, we can see the whole body of USS Midway, I was really amazed. I couldn't believe how HUGE this ship is!

On the airplane elevator.

Looking into the hangar deck.

HUGE!

The gift shop.

The hangar deck.

The stairs up to the flight deck.

The first thing we saw after getting up to Flight Deck was all the airplanes and helicopters. There are literally hundreds of them (Okay I lied, after counting them, there are only 22, but still, a lot) It’s hard to describe them, so I just took lots of pictures instead, please take a look below:

Planes on the flight deck.

See how big the flight deck is!

All the helicopters.

The control tower.

The flight deck is huge, so many planes parked on it but it still has lots of free spaces. And the view on the flight deck are fantastic as well, we can see through the whole downtown San Diego, Coronado Bridge, and of course Coronado also, it was just awesome. There was this 5 minutes Uncle Paul and me just sit on the bench  doing nothing but enjoy the great view of San Diego, it was really relaxing! A really interesting thing I see on the flight deck is that many of the narrators looks pretty old, I think that’s actually a really good thing because maybe they were in Navy and are retired now, so they will be telling us their true experience. Again, I took lots of pictures, take a look below:

See the Coronado Bridge there?

Very nice landscape also!

Uncle Paul and me set on the bench and enjoyed the awesome view of San Diego.

The Control Tower.

The house there is where we had lunch, a seafood restaurant.

Whoa. Bombs!

Super HUGE deck!

The very end of the ship.

"Read to take off!"

We then went to attend the guided tours of the captain’s bridge and control tower in the island, the total tour takes about 30 minutes, but it was totally worth it. I love it so much. It takes you to all the important rooms including flight deck control center, captain's bridge and many other important rooms. And there was always a person telling us the informations about all the things we need to know from the history to “fun facts”, so we have some idea of what we are really seeing. The only thing that is not so good was that all the stairs in control tower are tricky, and all the roof are built very low, and with so many people at one time, it is really easy to hurt yourself, so… be careful while visiting! :) Here are some pictures I took, the view in the captain's bridge are especially gorgeous:

Waiting for the tour.

The view was good up here!

The narrator.

Very tricky stairs.

The control center.

Looking down from the control tower.

Look at all the cables, boxes... I believe that everything can be done by a single computer now.

Very crowded!

Another room in the control tower.

Well, maybe this is the captain bridge? I'm not really sure Haha

Captain's room.

Really good view!

See all the cables!

Soon, we finished the control tower tour and came back to the flight deck. By the time we finished. it was also time for lunch. So we decided to leave the ship and go have lunch in a restaurant the we saw from the flight deck. But before we leave the ship, we went back to the gift shop to see if there is any good souvenir to buy, after minutes of choosing, I end up buying a Hoodie. The price was not low but I think this can definitely keep my good memories of this visit forever, so I still bought it. We also bought a photo that someone took for us when we first came in this ship, although it looks not really “real” (as show below), but it’s still a good thing to keep.

In the gift shop!

Leaving the ship.

The photo we bought. This is the digital copy of it.

We had lunch in a seafood restaurant just on the small cove right next to the USS Midway ship. The restaurant is called The Fish Market, it not only has a great food of the bay, but also serves fantastic seafoods! I ordered a plate of Rockfish with potatoes and rice, it was really good.

On the way to the restaurant. This artwork is inspired by a famous photo from the WW2.

The Fish Market.

Very nice restaurant.

After lunch, we started to head home since it’s already about 2:30. It was really a great day today with Uncle Paul. Thank you very much, Uncle Paul, for taking me to some many great tourist places!