USA Holiday, November 12 (Do You Know The Way To San Jose?)

Planned to start today on the Mission Trail (sounds like a trail you could walk or bike, doesn't it) to Mission Concepcion and then further on to Mission San Jose. As I've already done (badly) in this past, I looked at the map and decided it didn't seem too far to go on foot. Turns out if was 5 miles (8 kilometres) or more to get to the further of the two missions, San Jose. We got maybe two-thirds of the way to the first mission before it got a bit sketchy (in terms of quality of the road and area and not knowing exactly which way to go) and turned back upon reaching an old brewery and a power plant. I think this persons review sums it up quite nicely:

Not a walking trail

Don't even think about walking this trail. It is way too long and takes you into neighborhoods you don't want to be walking in and into rural areas without much civilisation. Definitely worth checking out if you have a car. Bring plenty of bottled water if you're walking around the missions. Otherwise you'll be sorry.

On the way back into the city we got to head past the Alamodome, which is where the Spurs used to play. Unlike the new stadium, this one was located conveniently in downtown!

The Alamodome.

Hemisfair Park is across from The Alamodome, and as the name suggests the park was designated for the world's fair (way back in 1968). The lasting legacy of the fair is the great Tower Of The Americas - a tower with an observation deck overlooking the city. The ride to the top is fun, it's not super high, certainly nothing to be worried about. From the top I was even able to get an idea of how far (quite far) I'd just walked to get to the missions and how much further I had to go.

The price of admission also includes entrance to yet another 4D film - Skies Over Texas. Despite being about Texas rather than just San Antonio this film was alright, about ten times better than the New York one.

The elevator making it's way to the top.

The city of San Antonio.

The three most recognisable buildings are the Tower Life building (on the left, with the green tip) the Weston Centre (in the middle, the tallest building) and the Bank Of America Plaza (same coloured building to the right of that). That flower looking building is the Assembly Hall in La Villita.

The Spurs' AT & T Centre is in the top left corner.

Had lunch in the River Center Mall. In many of the food courts we've visited you encounter situations such as this (but none quite to this extent) where as you walk alongside each of the food places the people behind the counter go crazy trying to hand you a toothpick with a sample of their food. They're shouting things at the same time trying to get you in, very loud, quite funny.

Hopped on one of the narrated River Walk tours after this. It was informative, but because of the twists and turns, and because you're below the street level and not following a normal street grid layout you can easily get confused about whereabouts in the city you are.

I'm On A Boat.

A small island in the River Walk where people get married.

The guide says during a storm or flood this tree got shifted across the street and now grows out of the wall.
Or maybe it just grew out of the wall.

A proper visit to The Alamo next, which is also conveniently located in the city. They've done a pretty good job preserving what they could.

This turns out to be the less famous side / rear entrance to The Alamo.

A structure that is now used as a gift shop. Not sure if that's a good thing.

Flags and cannons.

This is more like it. It's a weekday too, so there's not many tourists around.

Walked down to Market Square next, which is your typical market type area. Lots of stores here, selling various junk and souvenirs and the like, but we were basically the only people in the whole place. Again, maybe it was a weekday thing.

Market Square.

La Villita River Theatre, as seen earlier.

Had dinner at a place called Fuddruckers where I was actually able to order a Veggie Burger for a change, while Jason ordered the 1 pound burger.

As it was now dark (unfortunately the end of daylight savings kicked in during LA) we went for another quick trip to the Tower, since you get unlimited entry for the day you buy your ticket.

Having spent time in four cities now, I've noticed a few differences about the roads there - although haven't actually driven a car myself.

• Some cities are way more considerate to pedestrians than Melbourne (SF and LA), some are about the same (Philadelphia) whereas New York is just a system of it's own - both the cars and the people just make their own judgement it seems. You can walk across on a red light with a police officer literally standing right next to you without repercussion.
• Some cities, such as Philadelphia and Indianapolis, seem to have optional use of front license plates.
• The taxis in Philadelphia look like Police cars! (white top half, black bottom half). This is so hard to adjust to.
• You can right turn (the equivalent of our left turn "sneaking" around the corner at a four-way intersection) with a red light. It seems you just use your best judgement and if you can see you aren't about to turn in front of oncoming traffic you can just go whenever you want. Of course, the cars that do this seem so cautious about it that it seems like it's just likely to cause a bunch of accidents.
• At least for some cars, the rear left and right turning indicators seem to use the same (red) light as the brakes use. I didn't work out what happens if you're braking and indicating at the same time, but it just seems like a bad idea.