San Francisco in March 2005 -- Week 2

(Link to Week 1)

This begins Week 2 of our San Francisco trip Journal. You can click the link above to see Week 1.

Thursday, 24 March 2005

I have a couple of photos left over from yesterday, the 23rd. We went shopping in the afternoon and here are a couple of our shopping pics.

This morning we decided to go on a more challenging walk, so we went to Telegraph Hill and the Coit Tower. On the way up, we saw a small film crew shooting a guy on a bike going down one of the steep hills we'd just climbed. I was going to shoot a pic of him too, but I cleverly hit the OFF button instead of the shutter release.

So I settled for a pic of the film crew's bags.

We loved the walk up. We're both feeling much better today and much stronger. We did stop for a snack after we had been to the top of the tower and I got this shot of a pretty California poppy!

On the way down, instead of just retracing our steps down Kearney, we took the Filbert Steps, which took us through some lovely gardens on the eastern sheer cliff side of Telegraph Hill.

The steps took us down to Sansome Street which we followed to the Wharf. We went to Pier Market for a lovely sit-down luncheon of salmon in herbed butter (with capers for Michael), garlic mashed potatoes, and sauteed veggies.

A cookie from one of the little shops topped off our bellies for our ride home.

The ride home, turned into a long journey. We had somehow thought that the buses just traveled the routes along the streets of our city map, but... they go further than that!

We thought that the #15 bus would go down 2nd street a way and then turn around and come back up 3rd Street, but it kept on going! It was taking us far far south before we finally asked the driver when it was going to turn around. She felt sorry for us and directed us to another bus which happened along just then.

We happily climbed aboard the 9X and were back at the Argent in short order. We did see some sights that we otherwise wouldn't have, some neat views, San Francisco General Hospital, and some neighborhoods with lots of graffiti and bars on the windows.

Friday, 25 March 2005

We began our day with a roll, a muffin, a banana, skim milk, and orange juice from Tart to Tart, a place that's become one of our new favorites! Today is, as you see, quite sunny!

Michael's almost back to normal healthwise, and ... guess who has a cough now!?

Great view of the bay, and we were surprised to see people actually swimming! Kinda cold for that, imho!

One thing that's different about SF from Indiana is the flower vendors everywhere! Beautiful pots of all kinds of beautiful and colorful flowers!

And here's the map of today's walk!

Dinner tonight was tortellini at the Metreon's Firewood restaurant and it was wonderful! This place has little bowls of seasoned olives on each table -- the kind with pits still in!

We topped off our bellies with dessert from Just Desserts there at the Metreon. :)

Saturday, 26 March, 2005

Today we woke up to beautiful sunshine! We went to Walgreen's and got milk and juice and then went to Tart to Tart for a slice of apple coffeecake and a cinnamon twist. (Guess which one I had!)

Then we got our bus route map and our AAA map and went out in front of our hotel to catch the #30 bus. We took it all the way to Ghirardelli Square and a little beyond -- North Pointe and Van Ness, actually. From there, we walked down to the trail through Fort Mason, the Marina Green park, and all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Here are some pics we took along the way. We loved this big house!

Can you see what the dog is chasing?

This is a very large room full of exhibits of various scientific phenomena. We enjoyed the optics the most. In this first pic of Michael, he was making electric arcs go up through that tube. In the 2nd pic... I'm not sure what happened there, but I like that effect anyway. ;)

We decided that next time, we'll take the bus to the bridge and then walk back to Ghirardelli Square. That would be largely downhill and we'd end up where we could have lunch!

Anyway, we loved these photos we got of the bridge! And how about these pink flowers?

The #28 bus took us down Lombard to Laguna where we got the #30 bus back to Union Square. Everyone was there! I took a couple of shots just trying to show how peopled the place was.

We had a delicious late lunch at Boudin's in the Macy's basement and then crashed on our 2 couches for the rest of the afternoon. Then later we had leftover desserts. :)

Sunday, 27 March 2005

Happy Easter! Michael and I found that we were the most dressed-up folks at breakfast. We ate at the Jesters restaurant here at the Argent. I enjoyed raisin bran covered in berries and bananas and Michael had eggs, bacon, potatoes, and toast.

Then we suited up for our walk up Market Street to the Civic Center area. This is where the San Francisco City Hall, State Buildings, and courts reside, and also the area where you'll find the Symphony Hall, Ballet, and Opera Hall.

The pic of me in the dinosaur cage.,... ok, I know this seems weird. This was a piece of interactive art in front of the Asian Art & Culture Center.

I found this playground sign interesting.

And... we found this obstructionist artwork interesting. We find this on ledges, windowsills, and walls. It's somewhat attractive sometimes, but its purpose is to keep folks from sitting there or, in the case of this wall, to keep skaters off!

Here's the map of our walk. We went a little "off the edge."

After our walk, we walked a bit more.. to Chinatown, where we enjoyed a terrific lunch of Almond Chicken and Vegetable Fried Rice with WonTon Soup! Yes, we do eat with chopsticks when we can.

It started to rain as we ate, and it was raining for our walk back.

I'm feeling punk at the end of today, and we're just sitting around this evening, listening to the rain.

Monday, 29 March 2005

We began the day with luscious treats from Tart to Tart along with our milk and OJ from the Walgreens. Then we laced up the walking shoes and headed down to the Fisherman's Wharf via Sansome.

As we walked, the rain moved in. Michael, who'd smartly worn his raincoat, was fine. I, who'd foolishly worn a sweater under my stylish yellow vest, was a little wet and a little cold. By the time we arrived at the wharf, though, all that remained of the rain was puddles!

Our intention was to do the Hop-On-Hop-Off Muir Woods/Sausalito Tour. We went to 165 Jefferson St, just as the website instructed, and ... there is no such tour yet. It will be available in 2 weeks. <sigh> We didn't want to have a tour-determined deadline at the Woods, so we decided that we'd do something different today.

We roamed past the rhododendrons, camellias, and some more wonderful trees and flowers.

The flower conservatory was closed (Monday) leaving us something for our next visit.

We saw some shopping cart people who'd chosen the park as their destination. One was drinking a Guinness. Another had set up an elaborate camp at the end of one end of a trail.

And we saw... a fork in the road! (Picture is here!)

But mostly we saw sheer beauty!

The #5 bus took us nearly all the way back, going farther down Market Street than we thought it would.

Tuesday, 29 March, 2005

Today began with rain. We had a shower of our own, and then a delicious breakfast at the Jesters restaurant here in the hotel. Then we decided that we'd go and visit the Museum of Modern Art this morning as soon as they opened at 11.

I did my photo editing and posted my update here and Michael updated himself on the daily news. Then we walked to the museum, just a block away.

We always enjoy modern art museums, and this one is always special, but today it was extra-special, because of the special exhibitions! Though we were not permitted to photograph there, we enjoyed capturing the images in our eyes. ;)

Our favorite was the Robert Bechtle galleries -- 91 pieces of this artist's work. This site has a good description of his work -- photorealistic paintings of everyday scenes. This one has more about his methods, as well as pics of him at work. I was surprised to read that he uses essentially the same method that I do in my own photorealism attempts -- tracing from a projection of a slide onto his canvas.

We also liked the typography exhibits and, of course, the ever-bizarre galleries of new artists and the galleries of weird things.

the SFMoMA taken in 2004

We walked on up to Ghirardelli Square and were not too full for a chilly treat.

We hopped the #30 back. The funny thing is that it stopped a couple of blocks north of Union Square and the driver ordered everyone off. The bus was packed and no one knew why this happened, but we all did as commanded. I suppose that others caught other buses, but we just walked the 6 blocks or so back.

We walked on to Tart to Tart and got breakfast food for tomorrow morning. Tonight we're packing to go.