Tourists in San Francisco

Here is an account of some more of the site-seeing we did while Mark was visiting...

Went to Fisherman’s wharf area; for you literary-types, Carolyn was excited to see another literary landmark (Cannery row, or what used to be Cannery Row)

We had lunch overlooking the wharves

here's a better picture of those lovely boats outside

On Saturday we drove across the Golden Gate bridge and toured Marin county. Went to Muir beach. Here is a view from Muir beach overlook – beautiful!

Also in Marin county is Muir woods, for you nature-types, a rare stand of old-world redwoods, towering up to the sky!

We also found the town of Bolinas, a hippie town that keeps tearing down signs to the village so it doesn’t get overrun with tourists; little did they know we were on the hunt for some good whole grain organic treats and fair trade coffee. Here is the sign that exists at the crossroads just outside of town.

It was actually pretty busy in town, perhaps in part due to an opening for a photography exhibit , which was pretty cool  -- for you artsie types, the photographer’s name was, I believe,Troy Paiva -- The pictures were all taken at night just by keeping the aperture open for awhile, though the shots looked like they were photoshopped to create the strange lighting effects – they seemed to all be taken on route 66; that is American old-highway ghost-towny shots (you know the type....)

And our final tourist destination... (uh..., for you criminal-types?) Alcatraz! Not because of anything we did; we chose to go there. There is an audiotour that you do to take you through the grounds and the cellblocks – see Carolyn with headphones

I don’t know why I look so inappropriately happy in the Alcatraz cellblock. In any case... the tour is excellent, and is narrated by former inmates and employees, adding to the power of it. Here is a picture of the ruins of the warden’s house

Here is Tony in the recreation yard, practicing his golf swing; also inappropriate....

On the boat that goes to the island where the prison is, you get a great view of the San Francisco skyline.

And here is a look at Alcatraz itself as we made our escape on the boat back to downtown.

So that is pretty much our San Francisco days; tomorrow is our last day here, and Saturday we leave for our trip up the Oregon/Washington coast on our way to Victoria, BC.

I imagine we will post a blog or two during our road trip, so stay tuned...

Love to all, C & T

San Francisco update

Greetings again from San Francisco, one of the coolest cities around. Here are some pics of our recent activities...

Tony was at a conference downtown for a few days, and we met down there one evening and went to the famous (well, at least if you are into the Beat poets) City Lights bookstore, which is right near Jack Kerouac alley – I believe Kerouac wrote On the Road in an apartment down the alley.

Speaking of the alternative kind of scene, we went to an evening of storytelling one night. Every month the two coordinators of this story-telling performance series get together a very eclectic group of people (some famous, some regular average people, some in between) to each tell a 15-min personal story on a common theme – they prepare but they have to tell the story with no notes. The night we went, there was an ex-ballerina, a subway train driver, a well known journalist, an ex-baseball player, a middle-aged woman who likes to skate board, and a Howard Cosell impersonator all telling stories related to sports. It was funny and fascinating. After the intermission, they asked if any audience members would like to get up and tell their own 3-min story, and, of course, Tony volunteered and got up to the mic in front of all those people and told his story about how the Tiger Woods scandal ruined his golf-fantasy life (for those who haven’t heard this story, I’m sure you will at some point). The audience loved it. Here’s Tony outside the Verdi Club where the story-telling evening was held.

Also on the story-telling front, we went to the Opera House downtown and saw David Sedaris one night, who read some stories from his new book, excerpts from his “diary”, and answered questions from the audience (he then had the energy to sign books for hours, I’m sure, after the performance).  It was really delightful and funny. No pictures were taken, so you will have to take our word for it

On the homefront, we work in cafes, the lovely Noe Valley public library, and a lot at home. See below our patio from above

And the stairs that go up to the house on the west side (on the east side is the road up to the house).

That is Mark (Carolyn’s brother) and Carolyn going up the stairs – ascendez!

On that note, Mark visited us over the Easter holiday and we took that opportunity to do some daytime site-seeing that we had been saving up.

We walked to the Haight-Ashbury area and soaked in the neighbourhood.

Very colourful storefronts

 

Unusual bookstores

 

Greatest music store ever

We also went to Marin County, Fisherman’s Wharf and Alcatraz – pics to come in the next blog (are you excited?)

Hope everyone is well!

San Fran 1

A view from our house, a beautiful place overlooking twin peaks (which you can't see  from this picture) and part of the neighbourhood houses in Noe Valley. The owner calls the house a "cottage," but I expect her modesty makes her call it so.   

The front yard/garden

The front yard/garden from the front door.

Our back patio, a lovely spot for working or having lunch (well, okay, for having breakfast and dinner too).

We quickly make the house our home.  The living room area.  

Make no mistake, though: We are guests here, and Mollie the cat rules the roost.  

We attended a San Franciso giants baseball game, and before it started we tried some of the food offerings on the grounds of the stadium.  Yum.

One of the more beautiful venues for viewing a big-league baseball game.    

The game was exciting, and the SF Giants, last-year's world series champions, came through with a come-from-behind victory against their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers.  " Beat LA! Beat LA!" the crowd chanted over and over again, until the Giants, lo and behold, did just that. And, yep, it can get quite cold in the stadium being so close near the Bay, so these Canadians came well-prepared and donned their toques.  Hosers! 

A view from largish scenic hills called "Twin Peaks." You can see our house way down in the distance. We hiked up from our house, which entailed a steepish climb.  SF is full of steep climbs.  Ascendez! 

A street festival on a Saturday in the "Mission" area.  We had very good Mexican food here, not surprising because it is predominantly an Hispanic neighbourhood.  SF is full of such interesting neighbourhoods. 

More on SF later!

Final Hawaii pictures

We have arrived in San Francisco! Got here on Friday night; will talk about here soon (preview... it is fantastic!...), but here are some pics from our final adventures in Hawaii – this is rather long, because we got a bit behind (hard to take a bad picture here)...

Tony made another golf-buddy (which he seems to do on most of our stops), and one afternoon, they played a well known course at Turtle Bay Resort on the less built-up North Shore. While they played golf, I explored the main town up there, which is called Haleiwa, and is basically for artists, surfers and tourists; for example, here is one of the galleries...

A Hawaiian specialty is shaved ice (basically a snow cone with more exotic flavours). One of the most popular shaved ice stands is Matsumoto’s  in Haleiwa.

We had dinner that night at the Turtle Bay Resort before driving back to Kailua.

This next picture is of Hanauma Bay, a very enclosed area with a great reef for snorkelling; it is packed with people, though it is controlled, so you pay to get in and have to watch a conservation video first; it was beautiful, but with so many people going to see it, we felt bad about what will probably be it’s rapid deterioration in the near future.

Next, a little hike in Lanakai, which is close to Kailua. It’s easy to do at the end of a day, and gives a great view of both Kailua and Lanakai, and Waimanalo Bay (shown below), which is farther away

You basically hike up to a couple of old bunkers up a hill-top ridge; it’s windy up there on the bunkers!

We finally got to go to a Luau as well. This one was on a beach up the West coast from Honolulu.

Here is the pig ritual; getting the pig out of the pit in the ground, where it was cooked on hot rocks.

Hey, how did this picture get in here?

They had lots of swaying hula-girl hips too, so something for everybody.

And another site we had been meaning to get to and finally managed to see was Pearl Harbour. It was very well set up, and really interesting. Here is the USS Arizona memorial.

You take a short boat ride out to the memorial, which is built right over top of the USS Arizona, which is sunk in the water below. It is one of the few ships sunk at Pearl Harbour that could not be raised. It is now a pretty sacred site to many people as a lot of the crew also could not be recovered, so they are buried down there. It is very weird to look at the ship, which you can see clearly in the water. This is part of the ship that can be seen above water.

And Finally... We rented a ocean kayaks at lovely Kailua beach. It is such a great beach for water sports. The water can be kind of rough, so the kayaking was challenging and fun –

Hey, Tony, you don’t have to portage this!

we only tipped over once, and that was when we caught a wave coming in for our landing on shore! It dumped us out, upside down, right at the shore – we don’t have a picture because our camera was in the water at the time (luckily, in a dry bag).

Okay, that is the end of our Hawaii stories!

San Francisco is now ours to explore....

Happy spring to everyone!

Love, C & T