San Francisco (Day 2)

Streets of San Francisco - View from outside our hotel

If I could have a special power it would be the power to fit an entire city into just one day. San Francisco is a big place and even though we covered a lot of ground today I still know that there is a lot more to see.

Like the house from Full House. 

Anyway, like a marathon runner, I'll begin at the start.

We get up relatively early and head into Chinatown. With strong roots in San Francisco's gold rush history, the Chinatown district is an intrinsic part of the city's past and present. Being a Sunday morning, things seem quiet and sleepy at first, but as we walk through the streets a river of markets bubble up around us and we're caught in a tide of vaguely disinterested locals.

Chinatown, 8 AM

Chinatown Mural

Window-squid.

One of the best ways to find cool stuff is to just follow people. No, wait, I'm not a stalker... I've just found that moving with the crowd rather than against it tends to get you somewhere interesting. You can find the secrets that the locals don't announce to everyone. Sometimes this can take you somewhere a bit worrying - such as a small mezzanine-level park filled with cardboard-covered milkcrates and sleeping alcoholics - but other times you might find yourself waiting in line outside a bakery in a Chinatown backstreet. (Both of these things happened this morning).

I couldn't tell you the name of this bakery without extensive lessons in reading Chinese, but a nice couple in front of us explain that the place specialises in moon cakes. After struggling to cross the language barrier and order one each for breakfast, Nicole and I make it back out into the street and tentatively bite into our cakes. 

Moon Cake

I've ordered a White Lotus Seed moon cake with no yolk, and I love it. It's a very dense hand-sized cake, bready on the outside and sugary-thick like gumption inside. Meanwhile, Nicole is less impressed with her choice - a Brown Lotus Seed moon cake with 1 yolk. She's an egg-lover but finds the yolk a bit sickening - like it had been transmuted somehow by the cooking process. I try a little bit and it certainly has an odd consistency, but I'm not the best judge of eggs!

White Lotus Seed Moon Cake - no yolk!

With yolk.

Chinatown Street Art

Chinatown Street Art

Floating books.

San Francisco is definitely an inspiring place. 

It has a real sense of history to it. We look in the foyer of the Beat Museum, a building dedicated to Kerouac, Ginsberg and all the other beat-era cultural pioneers, and then there's Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge; iconic landmarks built on industry and ambition. Art installations and graffiti murals have also colonised the corners and crannies in plenty, drawing the eye and fostering discussion of the city's background as a progressive counter-culture capital.

Longshoremen's Union Hall

But there's also a dark side to the city. The homeless line nearly every street, sleeping in alcoves or asking for change to buy a meal. Some are clearly troubled, one guy sidles up to us with a trolley full of speakers - all of which are loudly tuned to white noise. I wonder if he's trying to block something out in his head or in the city around him. Another guy lies outside an old San Francisco Longshoremen's Union Hall, his slack-jawed stare a disturbing companion to the 80 year-old police brutality memorial that has been painted onto the pavement.

We cover a fair bit of ground in one day. A two mile walk takes us from Downtown through Chinatown and to Fisherman's Wharf. The Wharf, with its piers and shopping complexes, is the tourist part. It's from here that we take a cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz Island. It's also here that we see the famous Californian Sea Lions that have set up home just outside the Pier 39 shopping centre, who are so much a part of the city that they've become a tourist attraction with their own sign. Nicole also takes the opportunity to dive right into the local cuisine, eating clam chowder from a sourdough bowl. 

Obligatory Golden Gate Bridge pic.

San Francisco's Sea Lions!

After this we catch one of the travel cars on the F-Line, which is a bit like a cross between a tram and a bus, and then hop on the Metro-rail, which takes us to the other side of the city. We want to see the Golden Gate Park but get waylaid by a rad bookstore called Green Apple Books on the Park. By 5 pm we get to where we're going and sneak into a vintage fashion festival that is in the midst of winding down. Our goal is to get to the other side of the park and see the city's Bison, but it's just too far and too late in the day. Desperation sets in - we want to see it all! So we ditch the Bison and start trekking to the other (opposite) end of the park, in the hope of seeing the Painted Ladies, an iconic collection of San Franciscan houses. But we don't make it to those either. 

It just can't be done. You can't see it all.

We'll see if we can fit anything else in tomorrow.

Travelling to San Francisco (Day 1)

View of L.A. from the plane

Twelve hours is such a long time to sit on a plane. As we walk into the plane (we being myself and my wife, Nicole) I notice the First Class seats with their luxurious leg room and padded arm rests. Making our way down to the Economy section is slightly amusing as I take note of the disappearing leg room - it diminishes slightly for Business Class and then disintegrates completely for Economy. 

Nicole has us sit with our carry-on bags between our legs but this isn't a great idea in the long run. By the time the plane touches down in Los Angeles for our connecting flight, Nicole's feet have undergone a kind of drastic swelling akin to something like an elephant. Her ankles are no longer visible, the skin is red and puffy. Her face is sad and pained. It looks impressive. 

We miss our flight to San Francisco due to the main flight from QANTAS being delayed but things work out fine and we get to San Francisco only an hour late. 

Monsters exhibit in one of the airports

The time spent on flying and briskly walking through airports is an adventure in itself. The security measures taken in American airports are truly something else... bag checks and X-ray scans are familiar enough, but there's something sombre and proudly stoic about the American flag on the blank white wall, every inch of it covered in the names of those who died in the 9/11 attacks. Additionally, we see (or, more accurately, try not to see) a woman in a head-to-toe black burqa reveal her face at the behest of border security in L.A.

Things go relatively well for us. Our bags are checked and Nic has to go through the full-body scanner, but we make it past L.A. and to S.F.. Once we get everything together after roughly 14 hours of travel, we find our way onto the San Francisco subway and emerge Downtown. I find it a little confronting when about a dozen homeless men talk to us at various points, commenting on our bags and - in one case - throwing a drink at me (he misses), all to the backdrop of a loud, kerbside brass band.

The 'Bourbon' Bar, less than 10 metres from our room.

Our final destination, Hotel Zelos, is a richly ornate contrast to the bustling jazzy street outside. Darkly-lit nouveau art deco corridors lead to the Hotel's bar, a restaurant called Dirty Habit. There's a wall inside stacked with about a hundred different kinds of bourbon. We don't drink any bourbon. The food is good though... pork cheeks in sauerkraut with cornichons, lamb belly in a steamed bun, spiced nuts, and crispy-skinned potato wedges. Can recommend. 

We've decided not to go out tonight. Such a long day requires a nice long sleep at the end of it!