Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
Hey English learners.
This is Connor and you're listening to episode 232 of the Listening Time podcast.
I hope you're doing really well today and that you're excited to practice your listening comprehension with another episode.
Today I'm I want to talk about some cool places in Southern California.
This is where I live.
I'm from San Diego, California, which is the very south of the state.
But now I live in a different part of Southern California.
And I live close to Orange County.
Our states are broken up into states. counties.
They're divided into counties, as we call them.
And I don't live in Orange County, but I live close to Orange County, which is a famous county here in Southern California.
And recently, I've been exploring some different parts of Orange County.
My family and I have visited some different places in that county.
And so I thought it would be cool to talk about some of the places that we've been to recently in Orange County.
And I'll also talk about a couple places in San Diego County that we started going to more frequently in the recent months leading up to our move, before we moved to our current location.
So I'm going to talk about some different cool places that are worth visiting in Orange County and San Diego County.
And remember that if you want my training to help you understand English speakers when they speak fast, then make sure to join my membership.
That link is down below.
And also check out my U.S.
Conversations podcast in which I talk to different English teachers from all around the U.S.
It's a lot of fun.
It's great practice for your listening, because these are authentic conversations that I have and I transcribe them.
So you have the transcript for each one.
So it's a great resource for you, and you can also find an online English teacher from that podcast, because I talk to a lot of different teachers.
So if you want to start talking and you don't know who to talk to, then maybe one of the teachers that I talk to on that podcast could be a good option for you, a good chance teacher to take classes with.
So that link is also down below.
Alright, let's talk about some cool places that I visited recently in Southern California.
Before I go into detail about these places, I want to mention that when foreigners come and visit California, they typically typically go to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
I've talked to many people who have visited the US and they come to California and they go to Los Angeles and San Francisco when they come here.
I'm not saying that it's bad to go to those places, but in my opinion there are some better places to visit.
I am not trying to talk bad about those cities, but there are plenty of other places that are worth visiting, so you should explore other places in addition to those if you come to California.
So let's talk specifically about Southern California and and some places that i've been to recently.
There are many, many other cool places besides these, but these are some of the places i've visited this year.
So first let me talk about the coast on the pacific ocean, right in orange county, there are some really good beaches that you can visit.
And not just the beaches, but the beach cities or the beach towns.
There are some cool cities located right on the beach.
And the first one that comes to mind and probably my favorite one is Laguna Beach.
Some of you might have heard of this before.
Laguna Beach is one of the coolest beach cities in the US.
For some people they might even rank it as number one or in the top three.
For me, it's definitely in the top three in terms of beach cities that I've visited.
It's just really cool the style of the buildings and unique.
The city itself has a very interesting theme, a very interesting appearance.
It's actually pretty beautiful and there are really cool shops there.
So if you like shopping, if you like just browsing around and seeing all what is available in different stores, you will love Laguna Beach.
There are some really cool shops here.
The restaurants are great.
Of course, there are nice restaurants and coffee shops and things like that.
And there's this part of the city right on the water almost, and it's like a park with walkways, meaning little paths to walk on, and it overlooks the water, meaning you can go and see the water down below you when you are at this area.
It's called Heisler Park and it's really cool to spend time there, walk on these different paths and sit down on the grass there and look out over the ocean.
It's really nice.
We went there on my wife's birthday this year and she liked this area, all of the parts of laguna beach that we saw.
She liked it even more than the beach and cities in San Diego County.
So she really liked Laguna Beach.
So if you visit Orange County, you have to go to Laguna Beach for sure.
So that's the first one I wanted to mention.
There's also Newport Beach, which is not too far from Laguna Beach.
And I think that Newport Beach is like the perfect area image of the California beach.
The image that you have in your mind when you think of the beach in California.
Newport Beach is that image.
I think it's a very typical California beach with a pier, that big wooden structure that goes out from the sand onto the water and that you can walk on.
Of course it has a pier with a restaurant at the end and it's a fun beach atmosphere all around.
The city feels like a typical California beach city.
It has that atmosphere, that vibe, as we might say, and It's a fun place to walk around.
There are good restaurants there.
It's an interesting city to just spend time in.
And it's a great beach to actually go and spend time at.
And we also went there recently actually to the beach itself, not just to the city.
And I'm not a huge beach person, to be honest, but I had fun.
I enjoyed being at the beach there.
My son loves that beach and loves playing in the sand there.
So if you're looking for a very typical California beach, with the feel of a California beach and the image that you're probably imagining in your brain, this is Newport Beach, so that's another one.
There are other cool beaches in that area too.
Another one is San Clemente.
It's more to the south, but that's another one.
There are different beaches that are definitely worth visiting in Orange County, so I wanted to mention those.
Another place that we went to recently is San Juan Capistrano.
I'm pronouncing this in an English way, of course.
This is a mission.
In California we have what we call these California missions, which were these religious centers that were constructed all throughout California for religious reasons, of course.
And the architecture of these missions, these buildings, is really cool.
And in San Juan Capistrano, there's a really cool area around this mission as well.
And in fact we ate breakfast there, at this breakfast restaurant that used to be the courthouse of that city in the 1800s.
So this was the former courthouse.
It's a historical building from over 100 or 140, 150 years ago.
I don't know exactly when, but it's really cool that you can have breakfast in this historic house.
I love history, so it's cool to eat at a place like that that has this history.
And there are buildings all around that area that have interesting history.
And the architecture around the mission itself is really nice and There are attractions to see.
We went there on a Saturday recently and there was a New Orleans jazz band playing outside.
And there's also a really cool market there.
And there are a lot of boutique shops there, like these little specialty shops.
It's really nice to walk around there.
There's even a big area for kids.
You have to pay to go in, but it's a really cool play area for kids.
We had a lot of fun there and I would definitely recommend this as a place to visit in Orange County.
Speaking of missions, I also wanted to mention a place that's not in Orange County.
It's in Riverside County, which is right next to Orange County.
It's called the Mission Inn.
This is not actually a mission, but it has the architecture of a mission.
This really cool architecture that I mentioned.
This was kind of like a style of architecture that people wanted to revive many years ago.
People the style of architecture that was used for the California missions.
And so there were buildings that were constructed with this architecture, even though they weren't missions.
And the Mission Inn in Riverside is maybe the best example of this.
It's beautiful architecture.
It's really, really cool.
It's one of my favorite places in California in terms of its architecture.
We went there recently because our friends invited us to go there for my birthday, actually.
And so they treated us to dinner there.
When you treat someone to dinner, it means you pay respect. for their dinner.
They treated us to dinner there and we sat in the little courtyard in the middle of the inn.
I forgot to mention that the word inn refers to like a hotel where you can stay.
So this courtyard in the middle of the hotel is really beautiful.
You can admire all of the architecture around you.
It's really cool.
So you might not visit Riverside because this is not a touristic part of California, but that hotel is super cool.
So it's worth visiting.
And one other place in Orange County that we went to recently is the city of Orange.
So The county is called Orange and there's a city called Orange and specifically Old Town Orange.
So like the old historic part of the city of Orange.
This is a really cool urban area with antique shops and vintage stores.
Actually, I bought something recently from a vintage store.
It was such a cool store with old clothes from decades ago and I found a really cool blazer like suit jacket and I loved it and so I bought it and there are really interesting stores to go into there, like those vintage stores, And there are cool coffee shops and restaurants.
And the houses around that area look a little more historical.
We don't have really old buildings in the US, but they look pretty old compared to other houses in other neighborhoods.
So they look pretty interesting.
That whole area looks and feels a little more historical and there's a lot to do in that small area of Old Town Orange.
There are a lot of places to explore there, shops to go into, all of that.
So I really liked it, and that's another cool place we visited recently.
Let me also mention a couple places in San Diego that we went to more frequently in the recent months before we moved.
I don't know why, but I never really went to Mission Bay that much in the past.
But recently we went to Mission Bay in San Diego multiple times and it's one of the coolest parts of San Diego because there are many waterfront parks, meaning parks right on the water.
There are a lot of little beaches.
There are places to ride bikes.
There are a lot of water activities and there's water everywhere and it's interesting because it's a bay and not like the ocean, and so if you look at it on the map, if you type in mission bay, san diego, you'll see what i'm talking about.
It's like bodies of water all around this land area.
There's like little mini islands in the middle.
It's really cool.
It's little bit different from just going to the beach where the ocean is.
The bay has a different feel and, like i said, there are all these different parks with a lot of grass all around.
It's really cool.
There are many places to go along the water.
So We went to different parks and explored different places in Mission Bay.
We had fun doing that recently before we moved to where we live now.
And I never really explored Mission Bay that much when I was younger, so it was cool to spend more time there.
And One other place in San Diego that we went to a lot recently before we moved is Liberty Station.
This place was constructed somewhat recently, so it hasn't been there for that long.
It used to be a naval training center.
San Diego is a big navy city.
And so this used to be the training center for the Navy, but now it's this super stylish, architecturally beautiful collection of buildings that serve as restaurants, cafes, shops, art shops and art galleries with grass and parks and arched walkways you know those Roman arches that are used to make really nice walkways by buildings and stuff it's a really aesthetically pleasing area meaning it looks really good it's a great place to take pictures I always see people taking pictures there.
It's a great place to visit by yourself, with your family, on a date, for any occasion really.
And it's also right next to the water.
The one negative is that it's close to the airport and it's really noisy because planes fly overhead, But besides that it's like the perfect place to go and hang out.
We went many times this year and last year.
So this is definitely a place I recommend that you visit if you go to San Diego.
All right.
There are tons of other places I could talk about, but I just wanted to mention San, the places that I went to recently, and hopefully, if you come to California, if you take a vacation here, hopefully you don't just go to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Hopefully you go to San Diego and Orange County.
Perhaps and maybe you can visit some of these places that I mentioned.
I hope that you enjoyed this episode.
And remember that if you want my training to help you understand native English speakers when they speak fast, make sure to sign up for my membership to get that training.
That link is down below.
And check out my US Conversations podcast to practice listening to my conversations with other native speakers from around the country.
They're mostly English teachers, so you can also use that resource to find an English teacher as well.
That link is down below.
All right.
Thank you all for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
