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It has been quite awhile since the last blog post here due to life's busy activities. Granted, it only takes a half hour or so to type up a rather short post but I prefer the longer accounts as they give some depth into things and make for better reading . No matter which way it is done, posts need to be more frequent. This I shall work on.
Way back at the end of spring, possibly beginning of summer, my good friend and long time pen-pal, Jenny, announced she was going to be getting married and if I'd be interested in house sitting while they went off to Canada for nuptials. Of course, we would LOVE to visit San Francisco and do this! Giddy with excitement at the prospect of FINALLY making it to the city by the bay, we planned a tentative schedule. This is one we would have to save up for and be prepared to take as it meant up to ten days away. So Dena and I were going to take this vacation to San Francisco and enjoy every moment of it. Ann and I had been to Europe many times as well as all over the US, covering 32 of our 50 states,venturing into Canada and Mexico. But believe it or not, I'd never been to the largest city just to the south of me. I seriously never wanted to go there until the last few decades and this kept getting stronger. Now, I had the opportunity to go. Yippee!! After getting the flights taken care of and arrangements made, it was a long three month wait till the trip could happen. Due to our summer being the busiest ever, it flew by without thought of the trip until it was practically upon us.
We left on 30 October to PDX and tp head out to San Jose Airport on Alaska Air. The flight was easy enough and really quick at an a hour and a half or so. The airport there is rather nice and low key. Off to the pickup spot where Jen and Marc were waiting to take us to Newark, California, a small city in the south Bay area.
We now had nine full days to go hit the sights and see whatever we wanted. The plan was to see San Francisco every other day and explore locally on off days, to get some rest and not overdo it making us a mess by the time we arrived back home.
The first day was spent with our friends as they prepared to fly to the north to get married. Here is a few photos of us in Niles, California as we took in the local pub and then the Silent Film museum, where Charlie Chaplin and many others lived and worked.
Had some great ice cream at this place here and also strolled the street for a bit on a 72° day. Then drove past the Mission San Jose in the town, dating from 1797. Quite the beautiful building!
After the day with them, we retired to the house and on Sunday, dropped them off at the airport. The day was now free to go to San Francisco and get our bearings as to how this was going to work. We took BART. the Bay Area Rapid Transit train into San Francisco. Takes about an hour at most and if one avoids the rush hour, a seat can be had instead of standing. We were at the Embarcadero Station by noon or so and began to walk towards Chinatown and see a district I had always wanted to visit. here are some photos from that area...
The flavour and atmosphere here was all I had expected it to be, and more. Sure, it had it's requisite nasty odors that come along with an industrial area that has been around for 150 years but it co-mingled nicely with that of seafood, baked goods and Asian food restaurants that were pumping out their scents for all to follow. This is the largest Asian community outside of Asia, so I read. It is quite heady to the senses and a must for anyone going to this city.I hope to explore it again someday in more depth.
We them walked the Embarcadero and took in the sea air as well as the other tourist crowds, admiring Pier 39 as well.
This took in the remainder of the day. We would come back down here again once more to hit a few more sights, some touristy and others not so much. Got used to the trolley car system and loved to see these still in use. Our walking took us over at least five miles and we certainly had tired feet by days end. Time to go home for the next day and rest up for Tuesday's visit.
Our next day in town had us getting off the train at Powell St and walking up Nob Hill, watching the cable cars and admiring all of the glorious architecture surrounding us. The homes and buildings in this city are simply fabulous and one could roam for months admiring them all. The Victorian styles are the best ever and I couldn't help but snap a lot of them.
Then the contrasts of the homes with some of the more modern buildings was quite striking for sure.
This is what makes this city so rich in my opinion. That history of building, rebuilding and also adding in more avant-guard styles that prove to blend well. The Transamerica Tower is by far the most recognizable building in the downtown skyline, I'm sure. But there are so many iconic buildings here that it would take months of daily walking and exploring to really get a feel for what this city has to offer.
These Victorians, called the Painted Ladies, are super well known and add a delightful foreground to the skyline behind. It was quite the walk to get to these but we were rewarded nicely and also got to meet a very nice elderly lady from Australia who we chatted with for quite awhile.
This was indeed a highlight of the vacation. This view is one of my favorites and I love the contrasts.
To get to these wonderful row houses, we walked through Japantown and browsed there as well.
Japantown was also a few blocks away from The Fillmore, that historic concert venue for so many rock and folk bands,etc.
At the end of this we eventually ended up in the Castro, the city's LGBT district. I'm finding not many people know this about the city, thinking that all of San Francisco is such. But this is the heartbeat of the community and it is vibrant. We had some pints at a great bar called 440 Castro (couldn't pass up $2 pints of Guinness and other stunning micro-brews like Fort Point) and awaited the arrival of Dena's cousin. After that we hit Haight-Ashbury where we had dinner and drinks. Was a great night of fun and chat with Julie and Rochelle.
These were really fun parts of town and the nightlife in both is wonderful!!!
That was the end of the day for us and before you know it, the vacation was half over!!! So we still needed to see so many things. Next up was a trip to The Embarcadero again but to Fisherman's Wharf and to see Alcatraz. We had snapped some pics of it the few days previous, in the fog and with cooler weather moving in. Now it was sunny! Here are the contrasting photos for that island and the wharf...
Now I would not say that the island is really of that much of an interest to me in general, but the significance in world history and especially American lore is quite powerful. Simply had to snap some of it! Then was able to shoot some others as well of the surrounding wharf.
The shots here are all from the same wharf, looking northwest towards the Golden Gate Bridge, there easily seen in the setting sun.
Another day in the books, we relaxed on Thursday and part of Friday, getting some rest before heading on Saturday to the UC Berkeley campus and that well known area to shop for music and spend some time with Dena's cousins. We had a splendid time there and appreciate the kindness of Gary and Sue in showing us around and buying lunch. Was able to find a few CD's at Aomeba Records as well as a new necklace made by a street vendor. These are the folks I'd rather give my money to, the ones making these things by hand and not part of some big chain where everything is made overseas.
We ended this last full day at Ghirardelli Chocolates, like so many a tourist does. Yeah, we did want to do some of these things and were glad we did.
Sunday was clean up day, packing, laundry and get ready to fly out. Left San Jose at 6:55 and headed back to Portland. Had an incredible time there and looking forward to visiting again someday in the future. Here are some remaining pics I shot. Hope you enjoyed the blog post!
The building at the right is the Zen center of San Francisco, one of the first Buddhist places in the city. Was able to go there and found a delightful tea cup that simply called to me!!
Cheers till the next blog post!!!!!
