Things I Have Learned in San Francisco
Dec. 27th, 2008 11:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealin1. If you want to get on a cable car, you should either go to a terminus or wait for a weekday.
2. There's a surprisingly shallow sandbar a way out from the coast and waves break on it! That's cool.
3. When the morning or evening sun isn't reflecting off the Golden Gate Bridge in a photogenic way, it is actually quite a dark red.
4. Golden Gate Park is not connected to the bridge, but is neat.
5. Things generally look awesome, probably because SF didn't consistently throw out everything over twenty years old, unlike some West Coast cities I could name; it has Flavour, and that flavour is neither Shiny nor Cardboard.
6. Joseph Conrad Square is actually a triangle.
7. This city has two science museums. TWO! No wonder it's so fantastic.
8. If every tourist trap is crowded beyond reason, the Maritime Museum is still manageable. And cool. Even when the main museum building is closed and the Balclutha is in drydock. The model of the clipper Champion of the Sea in the visitors' centre is worth a visit too.
9. The granite retaining wall on Pine and Mason is all that is left of the Hopkins Mansion, which was destroyed by fire. (yes, that fire.)
10. San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle were the first three big cities on the West Coast because they were the only places where marine commerce could get inland in any significant way; Seattle has Puget Sound, Portland has the Columbia River, and San Francisco has the bay (which goes on and on) and the rivers that drain the Central Valley.
Actually photos of the Eureka, former ferryboat. There were a lot of cool old cars on the car deck but I didn't get photos of them (yet). Most of these felt like old photos even when I was standing in them, so I obliged and aged them up a bit using my wondrous modern technology. Oh the irony! My belly shakes with merriment.
I admit a great deal of the joy I extracted from this ship was related to how exactly it matches the Martinez in the first chapter of The Sea Wolf.
I don't know what this is; it looked like it (and its mate, not pictured) might have once held a lifeboat...?
Pretty light. I like how the benches curve with the deck.
Alcatraz!
Okay, Photobucket is being a poopoo head; if you can't see the pictures, come back later?
2. There's a surprisingly shallow sandbar a way out from the coast and waves break on it! That's cool.
3. When the morning or evening sun isn't reflecting off the Golden Gate Bridge in a photogenic way, it is actually quite a dark red.
4. Golden Gate Park is not connected to the bridge, but is neat.
5. Things generally look awesome, probably because SF didn't consistently throw out everything over twenty years old, unlike some West Coast cities I could name; it has Flavour, and that flavour is neither Shiny nor Cardboard.
6. Joseph Conrad Square is actually a triangle.
7. This city has two science museums. TWO! No wonder it's so fantastic.
8. If every tourist trap is crowded beyond reason, the Maritime Museum is still manageable. And cool. Even when the main museum building is closed and the Balclutha is in drydock. The model of the clipper Champion of the Sea in the visitors' centre is worth a visit too.
9. The granite retaining wall on Pine and Mason is all that is left of the Hopkins Mansion, which was destroyed by fire. (yes, that fire.)
10. San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle were the first three big cities on the West Coast because they were the only places where marine commerce could get inland in any significant way; Seattle has Puget Sound, Portland has the Columbia River, and San Francisco has the bay (which goes on and on) and the rivers that drain the Central Valley.
Actually photos of the Eureka, former ferryboat. There were a lot of cool old cars on the car deck but I didn't get photos of them (yet). Most of these felt like old photos even when I was standing in them, so I obliged and aged them up a bit using my wondrous modern technology. Oh the irony! My belly shakes with merriment.
I admit a great deal of the joy I extracted from this ship was related to how exactly it matches the Martinez in the first chapter of The Sea Wolf.
I don't know what this is; it looked like it (and its mate, not pictured) might have once held a lifeboat...?
Pretty light. I like how the benches curve with the deck.
Alcatraz!
Okay, Photobucket is being a poopoo head; if you can't see the pictures, come back later?
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-28 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 06:21 am (UTC)I have good memories of those places.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 07:29 am (UTC)Oh yes!
Date: 2008-12-30 06:29 am (UTC)Traditional Chinese Tea with all the trimmings. I used to work for them.
Another site to see is the Mall at the Powell Street BART, it has curved escalators. And, if you go up to the cable car side and stand on the sidewalk, you may very well see Huge Sign Guy.
Look for an Older Black Gentleman in a suit with a huge ass sign covered in homophobic religious propaganda. He's hilarious for people watching and you could probably get a few gesture sketches off him.
Another guy to keep an eye out for is Bush Guy. He has a fake bush he hides behind and then pushes it aside to scare people. He's very good. You don't see him until you're right next to him. I tipped him two bucks. He hangs out along the Embarcadero between Pier 39 and Gharadelli sqaure.
By the way, you simply must have some Gharadelli chocolate. MUST.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 07:35 am (UTC)Haven't seen Huge Sign Guy yet (maybe they chased him away for the holidays?) but we did run into Bush Guy the other day – which is to say my sister ran into him, I was a few steps behind and was immediately suspicious at a bush randomly squatting on the sidewalk. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-12-30 07:53 am (UTC)