Blogs from San Francisco, California, United States, North America - page 222

Tuesday and after switching locales to the Green Tortoise we were ready to embark on the mission of the day. This was to meet two friends flying up from Texas. A rendez vous had been pre-arranged some months earlier at a bar called the Achilles Heel in Haight Ashbury. We had some time to kill in the interim so we sauntered through the commercial district before catching a bus to the West Beach to check out the scene. Geographically San Francisco hadn't seemed that big but catching the bus to the West side put its actual size into perspective. In fact it is very big and the bus running parallel alongside San Franciso's biggest park hits this vey much home. This uniform conurbation seems to go on for ever and by the time you reach west ... read more

Cool night breeze on still streets. Welcome to San Francisco with the archetypal man hole covers ejecting... steam I guess? Book into Hotel at the bottom of Chinatown called the Astoria and take a moment to reflect on the madness of some hours earlier. Flying direct is expensive these days so we had to change airplane at Charlotte. And boy, did we change at Charlotte. The Nazi who dealt with us in customs didn't like that fact that me and my colleague hadn't booked anywhere to stay on our arrival in San Francisco. Consequently we had to hang around some purgatorial waiting room until somebody could be bothered to help us ("Not my problem sir, I work for the airline, this is a customs issue"). Only had an hour to complete the transfer, and with just ... read more

After a weekend in the mountains visiting Adrian and then Clay I headed to San Francisco for a few nights visiting Elizabeth and Kristen went back to Arizona. I had gone to San Francisco on the way to a meditation course in North Fork California (http:///www.dhamma.org). I had met many people in India that had dont this course and I decided that I should give it a try. It was 10 days of silence with 11 hours of meditation each day and was very hard work. It was apparently the same technique that Buddha used to gain enlightenment and the focus is all on giving the technique 10 days to see what you think afterwards. After 2 days I was finding it really tough going, and after 6 I was pretty much ready to leave. The ... read more

I had the opportunity to see San Francisco when Keith (Dennis’ nephew) and his girlfriend Jan, picked me up from Tita Sibi’s house. Stayed with Keith and Jan in their cool condo which was just beside the Candlestick Park. Went around San Francisco - of course you won’t miss the Golden Gate Bridge (wondering why it’s described as Golden when the Bridge is not Gold ha..ha..ha..), Crookedest Street and Pier 39. Oh, I saw Alcatraz from afar. While in the city, I was able to visit my cousin Grace who just had another baby girl. ... read more

I've booked up a car with two new friends to travel south. Matt, Steve and I will be driving to Yosemite today to camp in the wilderness. I spent lots of time yesterday reading about bears. To trek in the national parks you need a bear proof container - and in it goes everything that vaguely resembles food, any toiletries and even deoderant. The containers are made of thick plastic and open with the aid of a quarter. The bears don't even bother trying to open these containers, presumably because they don't have any change. We have the car for a week and hope also to see the grand canyon and death valley - so I get to achieve my ambition of visiting desert. I'll be sorry to leave the hostel which I have met so ... read more