Do you know what American city our teacher Todd grew up in…?
It is San Diego! I went on a road trip there during the last week of 2015 with my husband. While I was taking CBEC classes about 2 years ago, Todd taught me about San Diego and I thought I wanted to visit there someday because it sounded like one of the most beautiful cities in the U.S.A. Our road trip was so fascinating and my expectations about San Diego were completely true.

We live in San Jose, California. The distance between our city and San Diego is about 750 km; it takes 8 hours by car. It is soooo far. However we purposely chose to go there by car not by plane because we wanted to experience a long California road trip enjoying some places along the route to the destination, like the locals do. We packed a big suitcase, food and water in our car, and then our trip started in the morning on the day after Christmas. On the route, we had a fun time seeing the spectacles such as a huge farm against the beautiful green, brilliant Pacific Ocean and small, charming towns with beautiful houses which were built on the seashore. We took turns driving every 2 hours while taking breaks in the small towns. In the evening, we finally arrived at our first destination, Santa Barbara, where we stayed one night before going to San Diego. Santa Barbara is famous for its nice beaches and historical church.

When we arrived there, we could see the awesome sunset at the beach. We were moved and it helped to relieve our fatigue after a long drive. We left the city the next afternoon, and we finally got to San Diego at night.

San Diego is one of the top 10 most populated cities in the U.S.A, including New York and Los Angeles, however I felt that the atmosphere and the streetscape are totally different from them; it was very clean, comfortable and relaxing with a huge sky and ocean. We stayed four nights at a hotel which was close to the downtown and visited some spots we were interested in and enjoyed them so much. Additionally, I could find something out about the city that I’ll never forget… the delicious raw seafood! I love to eat seafood but I didn’t think I could find tastier and fresher raw seafood in the U.S.A than that in Japan, yet we did! We could encounter authentic Japanese sushi taste at a restaurant on our first night in San Diego. The restaurant was established by a Japanese sushi chef who moved to San Diego and opened the restaurant because he felt the local sea urchin (uni )is the best tasting he had ever had. The restaurant was very busy with many local people and they seemed to be enjoying the food so much. We could also find many kinds of seafood at other restaurants, bars and supermarkets. We had missed tasty raw fish since moving to the U.S.A, so we admired the taste so much and we ate seafood every night.

Our first California road trip was memorable, and San Diego is a place we recommend you visit and we want to visit again.

California Road Trip