San Francisco

Whoo... lots of travelling so far, so haven't had a chance to update the blog yet. Back up a couple weeks ago...

For pics:

SF part 1 - BBQ, GG Bridge, Coit Tower
SF part 2 - Fisherman's Wharf, Castro, and other randomness

Landed in San Francisco around noon time, weather was a brilliant change from Seattle, which was rainy and overcast. Sunny and +15 or so, could finally shed that sweater. :)

Tooling around Oakland with Dallas, Linda and Trish, flying around the freeways and getting lost in sketchy neighbourhoods ("I wonder if we can bust through that fence to the highway, it doesn't look very sturdy"), making it into the city with all the crazy traffic and finally ended up at their apartment, which hasn't really changed (Sphinx and Tex were still the same happy fat cats... oops I mean big-boned/poofy).

Went over to the house they're going to move into, around the Irving neighbourhood (the "locals" Chinatown). It's got decent space, and a large garage space that is going to be converted into a 1 bedroom suite by Dallas. They gotta do something about the connecting stairs though, either make them wider or install a traffic light to indicate when someone is coming down... Next was 8 hours of BBQ, Beatty family craziness (7 members present), some puzzling over the pictograms in the caps of the Mickey's beers (could drive one to drink, it could :P), and some tasty handmade burgers/veg skewers/Middle Eastern dainties. Eventually as night fell, people got to huddling around the dying coals of the BBQ, in true bum-huddle fashion.

Spent a week in SF, seeing some sights and hanging out with friends. Did most of the tourist trap stuff on the first Monday while people were at work, heading out to Coit Tower for the 360 panorama, then travelling by the streetcar of death to Fisherman's Wharf (when the driver tells you "I don't feel safe on this car, this is my last run", it doesn't exactly inspire confidence...). Wandered along the boardwalk until I hit Ghirardelli Square, where I caught the cablecar back to Market St. (hanging off the car on the side is fun, tiring, and occasionally earsplitting when the firetrucks roar by).

Highlights of the day:

an old "performance artist" who would hide behind a couple of tree branches he was holding until an unwary passerby got close, then sprang out "from behind the bushes" with a shout. Nearly scared the pants off me, and then I joined the crowd of onlookers/former victims to see the next one...

Busker who played for the crowd lined up for the cablecar, he did a pretty mean Beatles... and the dancing man who just started jiving to the music without any prompting or a hat out (coincidentally, the guy had played "Mr. Bojangles" about 5 minutes before)

Sea lions are fat and sleepy at FW, the young ones play around at "king of the dock" while the older ones are happy to bathe in the sun... kind of reminds me of the beach :)

Feeling like not only you but the cablecar is going to fall off the rails on the downhill segments



Went out to Pleasanton the next day with Dall and Linda for an errand, which is a nice little slice of suburbia with large malls and flowering trees everywhere (plum I think they were). Afterwards, had a soup bread bowl at Quizno's (pure genius! environmental and tasty), and some ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery (the original "marble slab ice cream parlor). Basically lots of driving, lots of hanging out in flowering parking lots, and eating. Headed down to Mission district for burrito mojados with Trish, which are super-sized burritos drenched in sauce and guacamole (the things are the size of my forearm!). So good, but could only barely finish half of one. Horchata, a Mexican rice milk cinnamon kind of drink was also really good. Got slightly lost on the way back, wandering through a bit of Castro before finding out that we were way closer than we expected to the apartment. :)

The rest of the week was spent wandering around San Fran, through the Castro and Irving neighbourhoods, a bit of the parks and other randomness. Since Lisa sent down a 1L bottle of maple syrup with me, we made pancakes pretty much everyday for breakfast. I went out in my pajamas (knee-length black pants, grey West Beach hoodie, and long black & gray horizontally striped socks with my brown shoes, Trish said I looked like a Dutchman) to grab some eggs from the corner store once, but SF has some pretty interesting fashion statements so wasn't too out of place...

Met up with my oldest cousin Peter and his wife Rain, who are living in the Bay area, and are doing great. :) He recommended some oyster farming up in the GGNRA, which I will have to do next time I am back there (it's apparently an "exciting manly task" to shuck oysters, sounds like fun! :P). Also met up with an old family friend Agnes Wong and her three-year-old daughter Maya out in Berkeley, where we had some great Indian food (no frills atmosphere, but the best saag paneer I've tasted so far). Berkeley is apparently the birthplace of "Californian cuisine", will have to go back for food adventures at some point.

Then Friday night rolled around... let's just say that it was a good night. ;) Yujie came out for a few hours, she's working down in Sunnyvale and taking latin dancing, looks great! Hopped around a couple of bars with a pizza break in between. The pics should say what kind of state I was in afterwards. :P I woke up the next morning to discover a pot with a plastic bag in it beside my head (pristine though)... Saturday was pretty much spent recovering, stayed in and ordered Nepalese food which is pretty close to Indian, just with more goat. Tasty stuff from the Kathmandu Cafe.

Didn't feel like doing a big hike on Sunday, so walked around Castro and Haight-Ashbury with Trish in the afternoon. Remarked on how the trinkets in those Tibetan shops were marked up about 1000% from those we saw in China. Chilling at Cafe Flore talking about random stuff, life, etc., pretty much what we used to do at the Black Dog. Sat in the Panhandle watching the slice of weird life go by (some people had dragged couches onto the grass, and after a while a cop car came zooming up to them, eager to enforce the law in this little corner of SF).

Monday was spent packing mostly, then went to Golden Gate Park to feed the squirrels peanuts with Dallas. After a while, they'll come right up to you and take it right out of your fingers (although one mistook my finger for a peanut once). Saw a model sitting up by the waterfall in an evening gown for a photo shoot, tourists were also snapping pics as they walked by (I wonder which ones turned out better...). Dogs being walked would chase the squirrels around, who darted up the trees but soon came back down for more peanuts. Funny enough, most of the dogs were little ones, not much bigger than the squirrels...

OK, ending this massive post now. More on New Zealand/Aussieland later.

G'day, Ange