Rackbits

I’d like to take a moment here to explain just how awesome the public transport in San Francisco is. Everything from the busses to the cable cars are operated by Muni, and weekly tickets (costing $26) can be bought which allow unlimited rides on all Muni transport for 7 days. If you plan on travelling in San Francisco I absolutely recommend this.

The island of Alcatraz allows free exploration. Once you land you can move around the various buildings and discover it’s past. Originally an army fort intended to protect San Francisco during the California Gold Rush from foreign invasion it eventually became a Civil War fort; a US Army Prison where it was subsequently shut down due to it’s high cost; then it was reopened as the 30′s rolled around. It’s doors were closed once again in the early 60′s again due to it’s cost and it’s prison life was finally over.

In the early sixties, it was taken over by activists who claimed it as Indian land. Nineteen months later it was abandoned once again and eventually it became part of the National Parks service and a tourist attraction.

The Cell House has an audio tour which takes you through the cell blocks and adjacent facilities and does a decent job at showing some of the more interesting stories.

Once back on the mainland we had lunch and set off to explore the suburb of North Beach. Paradoxically named, as there is no beach there nowadays, North Beach once was a long stretch of beachfront land that has over the years been infilled.

Starting at Telegraph hill we ascended to the top of the Coit Tower, then we proceeded to walk around the streets around Telegraph hill and North Beach.

It was now getting late and we were getting hungry. Having watched too much Anthony Bordain: No Reservations, we decided to head to the House of Prime Rib. This place is so epic it delivers it’s meat it has the Hindenburg of meat delivery systems.

That ends our second last (complete) day in SF. Tomorrow I plan on doing more tv show chasing and finding out if Bacon Maple Coffee tastes any good.

Making a nice change from the two previous days, Day 3 had the promise of knowledge in the form of an organised tour of San Francisco’s architecture. The tour took us through the financial district of San Francisco, showing us the past and future of development as well as one of the lesser known features of the city. According to city hall all large private development projects (such as office buildings, shopping centres, anything really) have to spend a certain percentage on public art and have to provide publicly accessible open space. This is called POPOs, short for Privately Owned Publicly Open Spaces. These can be anything from rooftop gardens to open plazas. While their existence is mandated their existence need not be advertised and they don’t need to be easy to find. As a result there are lots of POPOs that take some exploring to find.

The picture above is taken from the rooftop garden of the Galleria Park Hotel. You’d never know it from ground level but the general public access is through the Crocker Galleria arcade next door, going upstairs and then through a dingy door simply labeled ‘Garden Terrace’.

After the tour we had lunch and headed down to the Mission district. Since we were near the Embarcadero BART station we took the BART train to 24th and Mission. I still had my BART ticket from last year which surprisingly still had $3.80 of perfectly valid credit on it.

The Mission district is famous for it’s Mexican/Latino community and for having lots of murals. It’s also has the distinction for being the place that invented the Mission style super burrito.\

We took this as a good opportunity to walk around, enjoy the sights and take a lot of photos.

Our day began with no particular goal in mind. We decided, first of all, to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. After that we would decide what to do next. Our day was definitely heading in an interesting direction when we started by travelling in the exact opposite direction we intended despite having access to a GPS.

We had inadvertently ended up in Chinatown. We were so far in Chinatown, in fact, that a quick google maps search for ‘Chinatown in San Francisco’ returns the intersection of Stockton and Green as the center – right where we were standing. After a little exploration of the area were quickly set back on the right track.

Today was a particularly overcast day by the time we had gotten to the Golden Gate Bridge it was already being devoured by the fog-monster that so famously lurks in the Bay area.

The Golden Gate bridge, in spite of being deceptively long, is still quite an easy walk. The view on the other side definitely makes the trip worthwhile.

After walking back across the bridge to the San Francisco side we decided to head back into town to grab some food. We had also decided to figure out how to get to the Golden Gate Park so we could explore after lunch. As with everything else that happened today the plan and reality didn’t quite line up quite as I’d thought.

Still at the Golden Gate bridge, we got on the first bus we saw assuming the because the route number was the one we used previously to get here that it would take us back. This was wrong. We instead ended up right at the Golden Gate Park, the place we intended but didn’t know how to get to.

The Golden Gate Park is a huge expanse of parkland that is far too large to explore on foot in a few hours. Down one end is the San Francisco Botanical Gardens where we ended up after getting off the bus (more or less, it may have involved a bit of walking).

The San Francisco Botanical Gardens contains two things of note, beyond that of any normal pretty botanical garden, which is squirrels and Australia. Who knew we could have just walked and saved ourselves the airfare.

After exploring the Botanical Gardens and the Japanese Tea Gardens instead of eating lunch we had become quite hungry. It was then that we decided to head back to downtown proper to find a cafe and finally get a well deserved, if late, lunch.

In order to get back to SF Downtown we had to get on a bus. I’m sure you can see where this is going. After walking for a while we finally found a bus stop serviced by a single route. For some reason I was convinced that by getting on this bus we’d magically end up where we wanted. We got on and the bus started moving… exactly in the opposite direction of what I had expected. I wasn’t fazed though as all I really cared about was getting food.

A few minutes later we got off at the at 9th Avenue just south of the Park and quickly found ourselves some tasty lunch. Using the cafe’s free WiFi I also found correct directions to get us back to where we wanted. As it turns out we had ended up right near on of San Francisco’s light rail lines which took us directly where we wanted.

While waiting for the light rail we were enjoying the scenery when I had the urge to walk into this random coffee shop in an effort to find drinkable coffee in the United States (this task is harder than it sounds, sadly).

This coffee shop, as the photo shows, called Beanery roasts it’s own coffee beans which gives the shop a particularly nice aroma. Immediately upon stepping in I knew I had found something good.

The real acid test, in my mind, for a coffee shop is the Espresso. All coffee and no filler meaning that bad coffee has no opportunity to be masked. I ordered a double espresso, expecting the worst, and in short order I found myself holding a freshly made cup of espresso. I took a sip and my mind exploded. Had I actually found drinkable American coffee? Indeed I had. This was properly good coffee made by people who genuinely cared about the craft. I had struck up a good conversation with the baristas who shared my sentiment with American coffee. They have a great product on their hands, even by good Australian standards.

If you ever find yourself in San Francisco, make your way to the corner of 9th Avenue and Irving St, just south of the Golden Gate Park, and try out the coffee.

After taking the light rail eastwards we ended up at the The Embarcadero near the Bay Bridge. We walked around here heading back and forth between main and side streets.

This was followed by more walking around the Financial district, and then a trip to the base of the TransAmerica Pyramid (because it was in Sliders >_>). By this time it was getting quite late, around half past 7, and we were getting tired. Fortunately San Francisco has a great public transport network which makes getting around exceptionally easy (even for the chronically lost).

Our day ended with dinner at the The Buena Vista. It’s a place that specialises in the Irish Coffee, a specially crafted coffee lovingly infused with a shot of Irish whisky and served with a head of creme. A word of caution. These drinks are quite delicious and it’s almost impossible not to order more.

Quite a lot of walking in our second day of travels. Tomorrow we have an architectural walking tour to look forward to.

Trivial update: Fixed a minor typo

Something about crossing the international date line, plus the inevitable time zone change, has a way of completely destroying your sense of time.

So our day starts with our flights, one from Sydney to Los Angeles; and another from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Thirteen and a half hours later and after extracting the remains of my knees from the back of the seat in front of me, we had the joyous task of going through US customs and border control which has become even more sluggish than last year.

A quick walk to the departures area gets us back on track with our connecting flight.

Our accommodation is located near Fishermans Wharf, basically the northern end of San Francisco. After getting checked and connected to the internet (very important) we set out to get the lay of the land and find some food. The next few pictures basically show the story of our exploration trip; beginning with our location, our delicious food and the inevitable result of Ricci (aka Cheatachu) finding a candy store.

After all this we decided to head towards the commercial districts of the city in search of phones, basically for emergency contact. We must have walked around for a good half an hour or so before finding a shop that sold phones (and of course the moment we walk out we find 3 others within short walking distance).

The mobile phone situation in the United States is interesting and quite fail. Basically the networks are overpriced and have few decent services. It’s almost impossible to get prepaid mobile data or 3G network access. Most of the providers here also use old CDMA networks (like the ones Telstra and Orange/3 scrapped years ago in Australia). It’s almost impossible to buy a prepaid sim without a phone. I never thought I’d say this but I miss Telstra.

I’ll be spending the next month travelling across the united states of amrtica. My trip starts at San Francisco, and takes me to Seattle, Dallas Texas for quakecon, Chicago, Washington DC, and New York.

I’m currently waiting for my flight, not too much longer now.