Original link: https://fourhappylions.com/post/five-day-trip-to-san-diego-part-1/
I’m ashamed, this is the first time a Preschooler has gone out on a plane since he was born three years ago. Because it is too long, it is divided into two parts – the first part (now this one) is for various preparations for this trip, and the second part (to be written when I have time) is the daily running account of the trip.
When it comes to San Diego in the United States, the thing that rings in my mind is still “A- mei, look at God’s pressure on the dog ” – now it has become the golden waste of the tears of the times, and occasionally looking back on it is still so tearful. Speaking of Jinkela, I checked it out. Our agriculture in San Diego is indeed quite developed. The output of avocados, strawberries, laying hens, and hemp are among the top in the country (although it seems that something strange has been mixed in ) .
You add or you add. (On the street) It has an internal taste!
Pull away. This trip was originally decided to be very arbitrary – two and a half months ago, Colin’s company said that they were going to open an offsite in San Diego. I happily booked a cheap flight ticket at the time, asked for leave, and planned to go together. As a result, the offsite has been quiet since then. Until a month ago, the company said that the money was not enough and would not engage in offsite, and by the way, a small group of people were laid off. Well, since I got the green card , I won’t panic if I get laid off… but it can be said to be an opportunity.
From the sixth chapter of “Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ”.
In short, I bought the air tickets with the Preschooler for so long, and the refund is non-refundable. Colin had to buy high-priced air tickets, book Airbnb, and rent a car out of his own pocket, and this family trip was accomplished.
Airline booking, car rental, airport parking
Let’s talk about a few discoveries when booking an itinerary.
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Led by Delta, it seems that the commercial law of “selecting a seat and increasing the price” seems to be popular among airlines nowadays on domestic routes. This is really another practice of piercing the center of the earth since the checked baggage charges. In the absence of a premium member or corresponding credit card, if you want to ensure that two people sit together, both of them must be upgraded. If you don’t upgrade, you will be randomly assigned a seat about 36 hours before takeoff, and that seat is usually the middle seat that is neither by the window nor by the aisle – the other upgraded person, even if they want to switch together, will because There are already people around so I can’t change it. Of course, if you don’t upgrade, the boarding order will also be at the bottom.
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Renting a car two months in advance may be more expensive than renting a car for the same period half a week in advance. So you can swipe every few days after you start booking a car, and cancel the previous order when the price is cheap.
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The first time I needed to park near the airport for a few days and found that the parking fees were more expensive than the other. This time, I tried a place called way.com – everyone’s experience in the comments is basically hit or miss, probably a lot of listings have not been carefully verified. So I still read the review under the listing carefully – you must be close to 5 stars to choose, as long as there is a 1 star that is well-founded and not messing around, you will pass. This attempt was a lucky hit. It was parked in the hotel parking lot next to the airport. It took about ten minutes to walk to the security checkpoint, and it was about half cheaper than the parking provided by the airport.
Preparing for Preschoolers
contact details
One thing that popped into my mind the other week was teaching Preschoolers to memorize their parents’ phone numbers and home addresses. Up to now, my father’s phone number can be memorized fluently, and the address is memorized 80-90%, and the effect is ok. I thought, if these can be memorized, it will be easier to get timely help when I get lost. He also taught Preschoolers to seek help from adults with children if they can’t find their parents. It’s just that the Preschooler doesn’t seem to listen. Probably in the future, when you have to find a playboy, and when the state comes, do some role-playing so that TA can remember it.
Unfortunately, memorizing contact information is only a small part of success. I went to an Independence Day event some time ago, and I couldn’t find my Preschooler in the playground for a while. He ran to me while crying and shouting for his mother. Halfway through the run, he fell on the concrete floor, and nosebleeds came from both nostrils. The clatter flowed into the gums, and the whole body trembled from crying. Looking at this, I figured that I was still a few years away from effectively seeking adult help.
Preparation for the flight
My first time on a plane was 3 years old, my current Preschooler’s age, and in a nutshell, it was a disastrous experience. I don’t know if it was because of the abnormal airflow or because the driver was just too lazy. During take-off and landing, the ears were very painful, and the airsickness caused him to vomit all over his face and seat on the ground. I don’t remember if I cried out loud or not (mostly there should be), but I just remember constantly asking my mom when the hell she’d be here, annoying her to death (and she also vomited because of airsickness, but in the vomit bag inside). So this time I brought two large plastic bags as vomit bags, and when I explained the picture book about flying, I specifically mentioned that my ears might hurt (there is no picture book about flying that mentions ear pain! This is not immoral). Fortunately, the Preschooler didn’t vomit or complain of ear pain during the actual combat, but… on the return journey, he became the second most annoying kind of child in your general public when you were on a plane. The first thing I hate, of course, is the child who keeps yelling and screaming).
child car seat
As we all know, because of the different size, the car seat is much more tiring than the booster. Even if it can be checked for free, it is troublesome enough to carry it. At this time, I found that as long as you are over 2 years old, California does not stipulate how old or how many times you can take a booster. So although you still sit in a car seat at home, you can buy a lightweight booster when you go out. I found this blower on Amazon that looks like this:
It’s really good in terms of portability. But what I didn’t expect was that, compared to the car seat, the Preschooler would stagger a lot when falling asleep on the booster, probably like this:
From Facebook: The Car Seat Nerd.
At this time, I realized that the seat belt in this sleeping position does not work, so it is not safe. Sure enough, it’s better to sit in a car seat for a while.
Potty
In order to be potty outside, we bought a foldable potty seat in advance with suction cups underneath. However, it proved to be not very easy to use in the actual test – the Preschooler always folds the potty seat by himself, and the order is always wrong, and the suction cup is too sticky.
Washing your hands is also a challenge. All but one of the sinks I’ve seen (that was a kids friendly park) were too high for 2-3 year olds. I can only pick up the Preschooler and hang it in the air to wash my hands, which is not only tiring and unstable, but also makes it easy for the clothes to get on the water on the sink. In contrast to this predicament, naming and praising a Vancouver, almost everywhere (shopping malls, restaurants, Costco – unfortunately, excluding restaurants in the Chinese district of Richmond, BC), there are stools next to the sink to stand on and wash your hands. The Vancouver Public Library (Central) can even borrow the keys to the parent-child restroom—this is the facility that cured the preschooler’s nitpicking. After entering the door, TA suddenly sat on the high toilet seat and urinated without pressure! I was shocked that only a few months ago, the Preschooler was a Toddler trying not to potty pee his pants in the public restroom outside (see Graduation from Diapers ).
Another troublesome thing is the self-flushing toilet in public toilets. There is no problem with automatic flushing after the convenience is over, but people are still in the convenience. At this time, the automatic flusher is very annoying to move – often water droplets will splash on the unprotected crotch. The preschooler’s biggest complaint about the device was that it was suddenly too loud. When TA first encountered this kind of toilet some time ago, I was so scared that my whole body trembled and jumped down, squatting on the ground and shivering from head to toe – fortunately, the stool has been broken in the toilet, otherwise this The consequences of the action are unimaginable. After that, once I found out that there is a toilet with automatic flushing, I would strictly refuse it, until I convince TA that as long as I keep my hand on the infrared sensor of this toilet, the toilet will never flush. Even so, the sound of the neighbors flushing from time to time made the Preschooler shake. Later, I found that there is another tip on YouTube to deal with this kind of toilet . Instead of covering the sensor with your hand, you use toilet paper. But the principle is the same, the occlusion makes the sensor blind – the toilet cannot see the change of light, and it will not flush automatically.
During the itinerary in San Diego, the Preschooler gradually developed a new potty procedure – this person likes to ask for potty casually, and adults will take them to the nearest public toilet at this time. At this time, Preschooler will inspect the hardware environment of the toilet, and decide whether to come here based on whether the toilet flushes automatically, whether the environment is clean, and whether the space is cramped. If the environment is good, it is convenient to take advantage of the situation. If it is not good, refuse it and do everything in your power to escape, and repeat this whole set of inspection procedures when you think of potty next time. In addition, it is up to the Preschooler to decide whether a potty is lucky or not after a few seconds of inspection. All I can do is provide the information on whether the toilet flushes automatically or not. It cannot affect what the TA has already done. Decide. This is also what I have gradually learned from failures – I once spent a full 10 minutes in the narrow toilet of the plane to persuade the TA that it is convenient here, otherwise the plane will not be potty for at least 45 minutes after landing. But this tragic effort turned out to be a waste of time, and the Preschooler was screaming and struggling in the toilet until I let her out.
Itinerary planning
If it’s just one or two people to play, I generally like to go wherever I go – after thinking about the means of transportation for moving, I can decide where to go and where to live in the local area a day in advance. But this is a long-distance trip for the whole family. Since it took a lot of money and a lot of time, I still have to work hard to find out where to go beforehand. Especially when you drive with your Preschooler, you can always go early and not late. You must plan your itinerary in advance so that you can beat the losers who take the tour bus and the locals who wake up slowly at 9 o’clock (haha). It has to be said that tourists from the east have an innate advantage in rushing in early, but flying with children for a long time and easy to fatigue can probably offset this advantage.
In a word, it’s definitely not enough for a casual and poor travel like I did before. Literary fans can’t hold children when they go to museums and listen to concerts. Camping in the wild and hiking doesn’t have the physical strength. And the luxury shopping and leisure spa train is boring. After thinking about it, go with the flow and find a general travel guide.
I borrowed a copy of Fodor’s San Diego from the library. The 2021 version has been borrowed, and the 2019 version is still there, but it should be fine. The content was exactly what I needed – apart from the overview at the top of the book, the rest of the book was a brief introduction to the regions, attractions, maps, and sometimes a bit of history. The only thing I skipped and skimmed was the restaurant recommendation. First, because the book was written before Covid and it may change now. Second, because the atmosphere of most recommended restaurants is difficult to bring children in. The most important third is because I prefer authentic dining out. Asian restaurant, you old Fodor definitely don’t understand authentic Asian food like I do.
In the process of going through the area I want to go from beginning to end, for the sake of visualization, I drew a map , marking all the possible attractions and some restaurants.
Attractions to visit.
The plan is like this, you can travel roughly one area a day, use a car to move between areas, and basically you can walk in the area. Also found two public transports that I highly recommend, MTS Trolley and FRED.
- MTS Trolley is the kind of light rail transit service that can be seen in every slightly overbearing city. In addition to buying tickets at the ticket machine on the platform, you can also download its payment app in advance, bind a credit card and scan the 2D of the app. code. The only bad thing about this app is that after binding the credit card, instead of scanning the code to deduct the money once, it needs to be recharged before using it like a traditional bus card. The granularity of this recharge is inconvenient for tourists. However, there are usually ticket machines on the platform, so just download the app for backup.
- FRED , the full name of Free Ride Everywhere Downtown, is a city government that invests about 1.4 meters each year to hire a third-party service provider for tourists to use trams in Downtown for ride share services. The point is that this car is completely free of money! The coverage area and service time are very wide. The experience of the app is similar to that of Uber Pool. It is also to match the car with the starting and ending points, and then jump on it when the car arrives. Although it is so convenient and free, its popularity is not high, probably because it has not been vigorously promoted. In short, don’t miss this freebie, otherwise my old and middle-aged deal soul will definitely beat his chest and be furious. The only thing to note is that although it is a tram, it is considered a serious run on the road, and you need a corresponding car seat with children. We were denied a ride because we didn’t have a car seat…
But there is also something I didn’t consider beforehand, which is which neighborhood to live in. The tourist area is full of tourists, and the atmosphere is good, but if you book Airbnb or cheap accommodation, you should actually pay attention with children. For unfamiliar cities, neighborhood information is actually quite hard to find (is it impossible to go to Redfin to see the house price?) – I just learned about the Hoodmaps website, everyone crowd sourced the tags of each neighborhood, as a reference.
The latter part will be about various things that happened in the itinerary…
This article is reprinted from: https://fourhappylions.com/post/five-day-trip-to-san-diego-part-1/
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