The photos were taken with a Pentax Optio S4. Fits in an Altoids tin. All photos were originally taken at the 2304×1728 resolution, and cropped, resized, and readjusted as necessary.
Saturday, July 31:
For our first mishap of the trip, we went to the wrong terminal. We naively
assumed that we should go to the terminal for our airline. Beware: if it says
"X Airlines, operated by Y," go to the terminal for Y. We got checked in
with very few minutes to spare.
The flight was redirected south because of a large storm system in the middle of the country. So after connecting in Washington DC, we flew back over North Carolina before heading west. This made for a very long flight.
We had been wondering when we'd be farther west than we'd ever been, and our question was answered when the pilot pointed out the Dallas - Fort Worth airport.
The first in-flight movie was "50 First Dates" ("starring Adam Sandler," they said, somehow missing the main attraction of the movie.) I was glad I hadn't seen it in the theaters. The second was Hidalgo, which I skipped.
The first thing to do after checkin was to get a 7-day MUNI pass. It's very convenient if you're going to be using public transportation a lot. The downside is that you have to scratch off the days you're planning to use it, and it leaves silver flakes on your fingernail.
We were going to take a cable car to North Beach, but that was impractical. There are only 26 cable cars in San Francisco, and a million people wanting to ride them. You do the math. We walked to North Beach.
The first stop after breakfast was the Visitor Info Center for MUNI map. Incredibly, they close at 3pm on Saturdays.
The indoors Japanese mall was amazing. So many Japan-oriented shops. The bookstore was huge, and almost entirely in Japanese. Having studied Japanese, this was very interesting to me. I still can't read 99% of the Kanji, but I can sound out Katakana and Hiragana symbols.
We also found a little grocery store in Japantown, where we bought a Meiji "Black" chocolate bar. It seems the Japanese aren't competing on the basis of chocolate yet.
Then we ate dinner at Kushi Tsuru. I think that was the best sushi I've ever had, and it was reasonably priced, too! It's just not that fresh in North Carolina. Unfortunately, LuAnn's not a big seafood fan, or we would have had sushi every night.
Dottie's True Blue Cafe is famous for their breakfasts. We actually checked it out first on Sunday, but the line was out the door and down the street, so we left and almost got run over by the sidewalk zamboni instead. On Monday, however, the line was only a few meters out the door, so we waited for about half an hour. Was it worth it? I can't remember. LuAnn definitely thought the pancakes were great, though. I should have ordered pancakes.
Then we went to the Cable Car Museum. It's located right where all of the cables are driven from, so you get to see it in action.
The public transportation in San Francisco is usually pretty good, but you can't always predict when the next bus or streetcar is going to come by. It was windy that night, which made it very chilly, and the streetcar was about twenty minutes late.
First Tuesdays of the month are free admission day at San Francisco's art museums.
We had breakfast at Lori's Diner, because we noticed that there were many Lori's Diners around, which we'd never heard of.
Finally, running out of time, we hurried to the Museum of Modern Art. What a contrast!
We went to Pinecrest Diner for breakfast, because they billed themselves as "The Best Breakfast served in San Francisco." This is simply not true.
Science and nature parks are free on the first Wednesday of every month, so off to the zoo we went. So did everyone else. There were so many people, it was like a zoo.
Then we bought some Krispy Kreme donuts at Cala Foods in preparation for an early start the next day.
The final stop was the Napa Valley Welcome Center, where we tried a few more wines, and bought a couple of liquor-filled chocolates. The drive back was long, but at least they dropped us off at our hotel.
Just north of Chinatown, we stopped at XOX Truffles, where we each bought a variety of 20 small truffles. Nearby Washington Square was a perfect place for a snack.
Unfortunately, transitinfo.org was down. We took a nap, but it was still down after the nap. I didn't realize until this night how much we had been relying on this service (and our iBook and hotel ethernet connection) for figuring out how to get around San Francisco. We wanted to start the evening by eating dinner at a small restaurant called Mo's, and it took 2 hours to get there, after a series of missteps.
There was no time after dinner at Mo's to do anything but go back to the hotel. Besides, LuAnn was feeling worse.
We walked around the Haight Neighborhood (famous for the intersection of Haight & Ashbury). It's a very 60's hippy-ish neighborhood, except now it's old hippies.
Amoeba Records is in that neighborhood, though. It's a huge CD store. They have some listening kiosks set up that aren't ready yet for public use, but they're based on WinAmp and look like they'd play anything in the store.
We went to a board game shop called Gamescape, but weren't impressed.
We browsed other random shops. I bought 2 marbles — one of them is a likeness of Earth, and the other one of Mars.
We finally arrived at our final destination: Joseph Schmidt Confections, actually in the Castro district. We got 4 truffles each, because they're much bigger and more expensive than the XOX truffles. By weight, they're probably about the same price.
We got back to the hotel in time to enjoy the free wine again, and then went to Hana Zen for dinner. Sushi again — excellent.
There are supposed to be glass elevators on the outside of the Westin St. Francis Hotel, with a spectacular view of the city, but we couldn't find them. It's not too far from The View bar on the top of the Marriott, so we went there, briefly. It really is spectacular on the view. I took pictures, but they didn't come out. Unfortunately, it was crowded, so I couldn't approach every window, and LuAnn didn't want to stay.
So we went to The Top nightclub, but it wasn't very alive.
We got up a bit late, and went straight to Golden Gate Park. All this time on the Left Coast already, and we hadn't seen the Pacific Ocean — just the Bay — that doesn't count! Golden Gate Park is very wide. The plan was to walk halfway across, and rent bikes for the other half.
From the Starlight lounge, we could see The View on the Marriott, but for some reason the view was not nearly as good. I think it's just the way the roads are laid out, and what buildings are blocking what. Also, we could finally see the glass elevators of the Westin St. Francis, but even knowing where they were on the building did not enable us later that night to find their mysterious secret entrance.
We flew home. It seemed faster, but the jet lag is much worse. I can absorb a 27-hour day like it's nothing, but a 21-hour day is really hard.