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Published: July 30th 2010
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Bus 31 outside the hotel took us two blocks from Golden Gate Park near the western end. We walked the last few blocks down to Ocean Beach past 47th ave to smell the wood fires people had lit on the beach. Scatterings of charcoal on the very wide beach indicated this was a common activity, and understandable with the chill wind that blew. We didn't spend long there, walking into the western entrance to the park by the Dutch Windmill. The park is really long, over three miles east to west and half a mile north to south. We walked a small part of the west end, past the bison enclosure (6 here of the 200,000 surviving) and assortment of small lakes. The parts we saw were covered in trees and bush, with a few grassy areas here and there. Its a long walk, and with no bus service in the park, too much for our little legs. So we exited east of the Bison enclosure, after spotting some amusing turtles sunning on top of a large stone turtly in a little lake, and caught the number 5 up the north side of the park. Then a change to the 29
on 25th ave which took us south through the park to the other side where the kids had a play at the playground. (you'll note that's 47-25=22 blocks to halfway along the park).
Then uphill to visit the DeYoung museum. The sun was shining on us by now as we entered the museum for a short time to view various old and new artwork. They had murals from Teotihuacan in there, ancestor skulls, great wooden masks, American historical paintings and modern sculptures including a still life of fruit (again the Trip of Giants theme comes out again - see photo! 😊). I went on the Birth of Impressionism tour, to see works by Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Whistler and Rodin. These are artworks that I never thought I'd see in real life, and even not being an art aficionado, they were still pretty amazing.
After, we crossed to the California Academy of Sciences to use the last of the vouchers from our Citypass booklets. We lined up for tickets, to find that the voucher was a ticket. In some places the voucher has to be exchanged for a ticket and some not. Anyway, we finally got into the impressive
CAS that was packed with people. (alongside the fish, stuffed animals, plants and so on, one could also go to see people !!). But the busyness didn't detract from our enjoyment, as I followed Liam around all the aquariums set up in themes. The best one was a flooded forst floor scenario, where you could walk under the water in a tunnel. Later on in the biosphere you walked above the forest floor to see the plants and animals (frogs, butterflies, birds, etc) that lived in the canopy.
There was a section of stuffed animals from africa, fossil skulls of our ancestor and related species (hominids, neanderthals), living spiders, chameleons, centipedes and more. Liam and I went up to look at the living roof, where they've planted ground-covering natives (or in this case roof-covering 😊.
From the CAS, we exited to the north and again caught bus 5 which ran two blocks past our hotel. Time for a rest. Then off to have a look in the big Westfield San Francisco Centre. Big and varied, but not really for us. We much more enjoyed bargain-hunting in Chinatown than shopping retail. There were about five floors in two large
Sculture
Outside the DeYoung Museum (for you, Lynnette) atriums to walk around, mostly with clothing and related stores. Ky did find a funky dress shop and bought a colourful number for $200. While she was fossicking there, the boys and I went into a tech shop, and they kept the attendant busy by trying out all the functions on two $3500 massage chairs. I had trouble getting them out again.
With it still being early, and having had a yucky pizza in the food hall (Joseph like his cheese pizza but Liam and my meat pizza was greasy and salty), we walked up to Chinatown. Desperate for a dessert, and to placate Liam who was tired of walking, we stopped at a Cafe' on the corner by the Chinatown gate, and had icecreams. My cappucino was served with a baseball theme. Up the hill, we looked in lots of chinese shops again, the boys admiring swords, guns, and t-shirts (yes, real guns and swords). Finally we tracked back down to hop on the 31, this time opting to get on at Market Street and not the dodgy east end of Turk Street.
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