Coronado Beach

A sand sculpture sign

The trolley tour brought us over the Coronado bridge and into Coronado which is just a perfect township with cute little houses painted in soft pastel colours, and with the perfect weather it created a perfect morning for us to explore Hotel Bel and the beach. A pet peeve some San Diego people may have is for these local Coronado folks to call themselves islanders. The guide was quick to point out that it is a peninsular and not an island. Hah a new fact to add to my knowledge of Coronado.

The gorgeous beach

The sand was velvety soft and it was lovely walking along the beach barefooted while the wind creates havoc with the hair. The colours appear muted as in this picture. Gloomy weather which I prefer don't ask me why because I can't give you a good reason.

Perfect weather for cycling

Seen in San Diego

Aren't these bicycles cute? Its to chain your bicycles to and I've not seen these types before. Let me start off by saying San Diego is the place I would like to spend a whole lot more time in. Possible to retire here. The weather is perfect. All year round. The person who picked us from the airport and drove us to the hotel said their highest temperature was 24 degrees Celsius. Woot! Rain fall is only a couple of inches per year. So yes water can be a problem but they've circumvented this by constructing a recycling system to use such water for irrigation of plants around the city. This is the furthest I've walked in any city a whopping 19.4km. I got a small blister on my second left toe to prove that I walked that much. 

Trolley Tour around San Diego.

The trolley tour signage

I would recommend doing this  hop on, hop off tour. I learnt a lot about San Diego buildings with a short description of each place we passed. the guides are slightly different in character. My favourite was our first one he had a nice way of describing things and a dry sense of humour. He even made us turn with a wonderful description of what turned out to be a simple McDonalds. haha!

The picture above is the official logo, just before you get on the trolley, you're given a round sticker of the tour symbol to stick on your jacket or blouse, after which you're good to go.

my favourite guide of the day.

Here is the picture from where I sat. Its an antique looking trolley with heated floorboards and he plays appropriate music along the way intermittently to get the mood going before imparting some gem of knowledge.

Horton Plaza

The next building of significance that we passed was Horton Plaza. The statue that you see is of Earnest W. Hahn the developer of Horton Plaza. And what a buzz it was when it opened on August 9 1985. It had 51 stores and four department stores, Robinsons, the Broadway Mervyns and Nordstrorm.We passed Horton Plaza which I found later to be a bit of a has been. The anchor tenant moved out a few years ago and not many stores remain. Additional negative information was the weird escalators you may find. I saw one or two homeless people outside the plaza. So no, with the limited time I had on my hands, I chose to opt out of this place.

The end of part one of the tour.

Cheesecake Factory

Cheesecake Factory San Diego

We arrived in San Diego a little after 9pm. The flight from Los Angeles to San Diego was delayed due to an accident when our plane chewed up a bird leading to some cleaning up presumably. It's common so the driver told us. We walked about looking for food. And we found the Cheesecake Factory. Thanks to Penny working here, we promised we would get a meal and cheesecake once before flying out. ( which we did) 

Our first meal in San Diego was in Little Italy. We had pizza and then we walked a lot around little Italy looking for a kebab shop and when we did find out, it was closed. the weather was chilly with a little wind and dry. 

San Diego

Lovely afternoon in San Diego overlooking the bay

Hello from San Diego. Well I'm back to KL now so all this blogging is retrospectively capturing the emotions of that day.  This was my first trip to the States. A long journey which started with applying for a visa. A tip for first timers, it is not difficult but it does take time. (I'll blog separately on the experience) 

In the meantime, please admire the gorgeous view I had for a week when I stayed at Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, level 26. Wow! A special thank you to the lady at the counter when I checked in, she asked whether I would sacrifice a king size bed for a smaller room with a view. Of course I would. And this was what I got.

I read that May is meant to be dull and gloomy. So this picture doesn't represent what most of the days were like for me. But as I like gloomy weather I enjoyed the gloom quite a lot. 

To the left of the picture is a row of hotels, Manchester Grand Hyatt, Mariott, The convention centre and finally Hotel Hilton. To the right of the picture is Coronado. And the bridge linking this is Coronado Bridge. ( just to clarify, Coronado is a peninsular and not and island)

The reason why the bridge is shaped like a dome, is to accommodate the height of the naval ships as San Diego is a naval base.

9th May 2018

My voting centre is Raub.

Malaysians came out to vote midweek on the 9th of May 2018. And as you know, we have a new government and the spirit of optimism has spread far and wide. Its a good feeling. And we pray for many more good things for our country. 

Launch of the Malaysian Asthma CPG

The whole team together with the DG.

The 3rd of May 2018. Venue: Main Auditorium, Hospital Serdang. What a great day this was. The culmination of 3 years of hard work under the guidance of Dr Amin and with the support of the Malaysian Thoracic Society ( thank you for the travel grants as well as the printing of the CPGs) and to MABIP ( for the  props used for the gimmick). 

I would like to thank every single one of the team who have travelled long and far even during the fasting month for meetings in Putra Jaya to do the literature review as well as the writing process. I know some of you travelled and couldn't claim for all trips and yet you did not complain. One of you travelled by bus all the way from up north to contribute while others drove from Penang, flew in from KB, Muar, Klang ( and later Ipoh) Banting and also prioritize meetings so you could attend at least one out of the 2-day meeting dates on a monthly basis. Most of you hold more than one post and yet sacrificed your time. 

I am grateful for the time we spent together, it gave me the opportunity to get to know you all better and it reminded me what a good team can achieve when we have a common goal and with the right guidance. And here this leads me to a special mention of Dr Amin, our true mentor throughout the entire process without whom this CPG would not be possible. Truly, he is a humble man who allows others to take the glory of his hard work. He supports and pushes quietly with great tact and always polite. He is an inspiration to us all.