Imagine there's something clever about San Francisco here

So, I still have some San Francisco pictures left to upload, but they're all bits and pieces of stuff and don't really work together.

Here we go:

One facet of San Francisco's public transportation system is the street car. It's a single line that runs from Fisherman's Wharf/North Beach down to SoMa and back. It's cheaper and sometimes less crowded than the cable cars, but just as fun and touristy. Plus, it runs past the super-awesome Ferry Building.

The line is populated with a mash-up of different cars, all of them vintage. Some are from the lines that ran through San Francisco and other US cities. Others have been imported from foreign "sister" cities. Sadly, it didn't occur to me to try and get pictures of all of them until my second-to-last day.The one partially visible in this shot is from Italy.

This one, obviously, is from Zurich, Switzerland.

The Ferry Building is a fun place to get lunch, and while it's not a destination, it's worth a visit. There are daily tours and a weekend farmer's market, but I didn't see any of that. What made the Ferry Building worth a second visit for me was the food. Specifically, the French Macarons at Miette. I also got aged Spanish Mahon from the Cowgirl Creamery, vegetarian dim sum and tea (black lychee) at the Imperial Tea Court, and some amazing Recchiuti chocolates.

If you're fortunate enough to live in the area, there are also a number of vendors selling perishible items, like exotic mushrooms, caviar (but don't buy that because it kills the sturgeon), produce, meat, and seafood.

Fisherman's Wharf was a brief (maybe 2 miles) walk away from the Ferry Building. My camera battery was dying, but I managed to get a few nice shots.

Facing south, the Ferry Building is on the left.

Facing north, one of the piers is on the right. To your left, palm trees.

Another pier and a sunset or something.

Japantown had a large shopping complex that we spent some time exploring. The main attraction for me was Ichiban Kan, purveyors of inexpensive Japanese stuff like bento boxes, reuseable nylon shopping bags, those plastic sandals with the accupressure nubs on the soles, and sweet, sweet candy. There were a ton of restaurants, and I was left with the task of picking one.

The sign above was for a shop that seemed to specialize in curry. I was tempted, but opted instead for a packed noodle shop where I ate a gigantic bowl of veggie tempura udon.



Hey, kids, it's the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art! If you're an art nerd, like I am (in the last semester of my undergrad, I almost tacked on an art history major that would've meant another two years in college), then you always want to go to art museums when you're on vacation.* I have a particular love for weird and wacky modern art. In London, it was the Tate Modern. When I've got time to kill in Chicago I head for the Museum of Contemporary Art (conveniently located right next to the Watertower Mall).
I especially wanted to visit the SFMOMA because they were hosting an exhibit of Joseph Cornell's works. They were always some of my favourite pieces at the Art Institute in Chicago, and I was thrilled to see a massive collection here. They also had a Jeff Wall exhibit that I thoroughly enjoyed.

*Strangely, it's been at least ten years since I've visited the local art museum even with it's amazingly beautiful Calatrava-designed unit.

Random shot of a church and some skyscrapers taken from the park near SFMOMA.

Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

While the previous visit had taken me through a less touristy region, this time I decided to go for the tacky touristy version that had so impressed me as a kid.

I took the cable car from the turnaround at Fisherman's Wharf to Bush & Powell, near the Chinatown gate. From there, I walked up Grant to Broadway, stopping in souvenir shops and taking pictures of whatever amused me.

My Jebus sense was tingling. I saw this display from across the street.




This guy was sitting in front of a bank playing that horn thing. I was loud as hell, and I could hear it from a block away. I took this photo from across the street, but I saw a couple people get all up in his face and snap pictures.

If I recall correctly, I think I saw a few of these shops. I'm still not sure if Blest is supposed to be Blessed or Best.

At the top of Grant, on Broadway, I paused in front of a bakery long enough to notice the ice cream displayed. In the larger image above, you can just make out some of the flavours, like banana, strawberry, green tea, and dragonfruit.


This photo shows just a few of the other flavours for sale. Taro. They had taro ice cream. Naturally I had to go inside.

This place was clearly not a tourist spot, as the menus were completely in Chinese, and the women working the counter spoke heavily-accented English to a white couple in line before addressing me in Chinese. I wish I had found this place earlier, because I would've walked up there every day and gotten a different flavour. The taro was delicious and creamy, and if I hadn't been pigging out on bao and red bean flavoured pastry, I would've gotten a scoop of lychee to go with it.

In its own way, ultra-touristy Chinatown was every bit as enjoyable as slightly-less-touristy Chinatown.

That's the first time I've been grateful for Coit Tower

If you decide to visit Coit Tower while in San Francisco--and you really should--for the love of gawd, walk there. You can drive, take a cab, or catch the bus to a nearby place, but if you value your sanity you will put on some sensible shoes and walk your ass up that hill. If my fat ass can manage it, you can too. If anything, you should do it for the sense of accomplishment you'll get.

In the full-sized version of this picture you can see a totally steep street leading up to Coit Tower. A street that I walked up.

My trek up to Coit Tower was something of a fluke. It was the last full day I was spending in San Francisco, and I had run out of stuff I absolutely had to do before I left. I suppose I could've gone to the Golden Gate Bridge or hung out in Haight-Ashbury for a while, but I'm lazy and Coit Tower was fairly nearby. Plus, it had been in my periphery for the entire trip like some sort of subliminal beacon.

We lucked out, and had an absolutely gorgeous sunny day that was perfect for gazing out at the city from its highest point.

Seriously. Pictures don't lie. That's the Bay Bridge from a vantage point near the tower.

From this spot, there was a twisty little nature path--unpaved, trees and plants and shit everywhere--that you follow to the tower itself. At one point we hit a fork in the path and could've walked up some stairs straight to the tower's doors or continued on towards the sound of rabid vermin. At my mother's urging to stop being such a wimpy little bitch (not her exact words), we went forward.

Kids, listen to your mothers, because sometimes they're right and you get to see cool as hell stuff like this:

Parrots. A huge flock of wild parrots.

This may not be news to some people, particularly those who've read or seen The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, but I never expected to turn a corner and see a huge flock of wild parrots. Especially not in the middle of San Francisco, in the middle of winter. It was honestly one of the coolest things I've ever seen.

After goggling them for a while, we headed inside, bought tickets, and took the totally old human-operated elevator up to the top. The observation area is basically an open room with big plexiglass windows that give you a 360-degree view of the city.

It didn't occur to me to try and get a picture of Lombard street until I was on my flight home, but should you find yourself at Coit Tower, you would totally be able to get a kick-ass shot.

Note the coins on that window ledge.

While I didn't observe anyone making a deposit, it appears that people from all over the world leave behind souvenirs. I guess it's like the penny-squishing machines, but different.

I didn't donate to the fund that no one will ever collect and might just fall and kill somebody, because I had plans to buy myself to what might be the real San Francisco treat:

It appears to be a chipwich covered in chocolate and nuts. Sadly, I totally forgot about this when we got back downstairs. Still, who needs ice cream when there are parrots and breathtaking views and fights in the parking lot.

Yeah. Actually, not so much a fight as an argument, but it seemed like it could've erupted into an actual fight.

So, Coit Tower has what just might be the worst parking in the entire city. There's a circular lot that holds, maybe twelve cars; and, there's a single (bi-directional) road leading to and from the tower. There really isn't any room to turn around until you get to the top, so anyone driving up there might get stuck sitting in traffic while cars at the front wait for a spot.

While waiting for the bus that stops at Coit, I watched a woman and her sons stand in the handicapped parking spot to save it for someone in a car at the bottom of the hill. When a car with a handicapped tag showed up, this went over about as well as could be expected. They screamed at each other: she had someone coming, he didn't give a fuck. In the time that this went down, two or three additional spots opened and were filled by cars in the que.

The moral to this story? Unless you want to a source of entertainment for someone who will proceed to talk shit about you (and I totally did), walk up to Coit Tower. It's a fairly easy hike, and you won't be the subject of a story that starts "I saw whitest, trashiest people at Coit Tower today".

They do in Chinatown

San Francisco, wonderfully hilly and mass-transited though it may be, is not gigantic and sprawling like LA and Chicago are. This means that you could conceivably walk from one end of the city to the other. Or, that you could easily walk from the touristy neighborhood where your hotel is to the touristy neighborhood where there are a bunch of shops to look at.

During the week I was in San Francisco, I made two trips to Chinatown. The first was when I was walking around North Beach. I basically turned a corner and there it was. I wound up walking down Stockton, which is one street over from the superultratouristy Grant street. While there were still plenty of cheesy souvenir shops, there were also markets and shops and restaurants that were, like, for people who actually lived there. It meant that I got to see cool shit like:

Frickin' durian fruit. Crazy and exotic to my Wisconsin-ite eyes, but just about every fruit stand I passed had them for sale.


I know, they're ducks. Big fucking deal. However...

Tripe! I know, right? And next to it, but less visible, chicken feet. Touristy dim sum joints on Grant weren't rocking this shit.
While the chances of me being able to, um, stomach the tripe were slim to none, I should've man'ed up and sampled the chicken feet.

This pagoda-shaped pay phone on the corner of Jackson & Stockton. Why, yes, that is me with my face blacked out. The booth's exterior was covered in graffiti, and I'm not entirely sure it worked. Still, it was pretty fucking cool and probably a relic from a time before mobile phones. Note: If you go on the street-level thing on Google Maps, you can actually sort of see this thing at that intersection. Neat, huh?

Sadly, I'm not sure what amused me more about this: Dick Lee or the angelfire web address. Yep, it actually works. The place looked shut down, but maybe they were just closed for the day.

I actually caught sight of this fucking gorgeous view while on the cable car going down Powell earlier that day. I believe this is looking down Jackson street.
I have several pictures peering out in to the Bay, and this one is my definite favourite.


Seen, but not pictured:

• tons of bakeries selling bao and lotus cakes and red bean mochi
• bubble tea and crepe stall where I had the hugest selection of bubble tea flavours I've ever seen (taro, always go taro)
• live fish market - my mother and I watched a couple of guys trying to grab live fish out of a small tank, their efforts made a mess and were unsuccessful until the shop lady quickly reach over, grabbed the fish, and tossed it in a bag for them.

The annual Jellyfish Cotillion

Jellyfish, along you came,

and right away I'm stung.

Sweet words I long to whisper,
But you've paralyzed my tounge.

The jellyfish in the top picture are real, and can be found at the Aquarium of the Bay at Pier 39. The ones in the bottom picture are the tackiest souvenirs I saw in San Francisco, and can be found at a shop at Pier 39 and possibly in someone's home.

So, San Francisco has a small aquarium. It's not the Shedd, but it's a fun (if you're a science nerd, and I am) way to spend an afternoon.

The Under the Bay exhibit is super-cool. You get to walk through two long-ass tunnels smack dab in the middle of two different Bay environments. The first one is a shallow water habitat, and has stuff like sea anemones, starfish, and the prettier Finding Nemo-esque fish. The second, a deep water habitat, has the bigger, scarier stuff like sharks and sturgeon. There's also a gigantic swirly school of anchovies, which is also sort of scary if you've got a thing about swarms of stuff (yep) or you've gotten sick from eating anchovies (done that too).

Even cooler is the Touch the Bay exhibit at the end. There are a couple of shallow pools overseen by aquarium-ologists with bat rays and sea urchins and rays and starfish and leopard sharks that you can touch. You get to touch a fucking shark.

If you time your visit right (we didn't, damnit), you can you can go to an ocean-themed demo that will probably involve watching the animals eat.

How I Spent My Winter Vacation

Did I mention I was in San Francisco for the from X-mas to New Year's? 'Cause I was and it was fucking awesome.

On X-mas day, after cramming myself full of deliciously fatty fish & chips and beer, I walked around Fisherman's Warf and saw:

Lethargic sea lions being gawked at by tourists.



The phallic grandeur of stately Coit Tower, and the awesome modern pointyness of the two on the right.


Beautiful Alcatraz Island.



And this kid's super-cool X-mas themed getup.

I was there with my mom (I know, right?) for about a week, so there are more pictures to come.