San Francisco - Mar. 21-24, 2008

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San Francisco was awesome. Castro and Haight-Ashbury are difinately my favourite neighbourhoods. It's a shame that the Civic Center area is so crackhead ridden though. The City Hall is beautiful, and the San Francisco Public Library is fantastic too. But you must wade through crackheads before you can enjoy that area. It's gross to see people pissing in beautiful public waterfountains in broad daylight.

San Francisco's China Town is absolutely massive. I was thoroughly impressed. It's very hard walking up and down all the hills in China Town trying to see it all though. There's just too much... San Francisco's Little Japan, in contrast, is incredibly tiny.

I read somewhere that San Francisco is a transit lovers paradise, but I beg to differ. For one, the BART subway/metro system is completely seperate from the MUNI streetcars and buses. You have to pay on BART based on how far you are going: to go from the airport to Embacadero Station near the Ferry Building costs $5.35 per way. The MUNI fares, however, are only $1.50, and one could easily get away with using their transfer from that $1.50 fare numerous times in a day. The old cable cars are nice to see, they add a cool vibe to San Francisco, and I can understand why residents fought so hard to keep them a part of the city. But $5.00 a ride?? That's insane! The Cable Car Museum is free though, that's worth the trip.

We took a San Francisco Bay boat cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge. We also walked across the bridge from the Prisidio or Fort Point, and then rode a bus across it when we went on a 4 hour Muir Woods and Sausalito tour. Muir Woods was really cool, but it's kind of hard to enjoy nature when there's so many people around. It's all original old growth forest though, and the redwoods are so huge! And they aren't even the Giant Redwoods like they have in Yosemite.

On the Friday night we were in San Francisco, we went to see a show by the San Francisco Gay Men's Choir. They did a show with these lesbian burlesque dancers who were voted the best burlesque in the Bay Area. I would have to say that burlesque is much better in Canada. But man, could these men ever sing! It was a pretty good show all in all.

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Photos

Japan Center
Japan Town is really small in San Francisco.

China Town
Absolutely huge

Butterfly in the Conservatory of Flowers
There is a really neat butterfly exhibit happening at the Conservatory of Flowers for the next few months.

Coit Tower
The statue in front is Christopher Columbus. Boo!

Civic Center
There was a guy taking a piss in this fountain just before I took this picture. Lovely.