(no subject)
Sorry for those of you just clamoring to read my belated music reviews, but I've been busy lately. As you may have recalled, we were scheduled to visit San Francisco for our 5th anniversary last week. We did so and had a great time indeed. ikahana, my occasional alter ego, penned a 9-page document for us on SF from an insider's perspective, and he was a gigantic help with pointing us in the directions we wanted to go. As such, I wrote him a huge trip summary that detailed everything we did. Its probably more info than any of you will have time for, but just in case you're curious I'll reprint it here.
I'm not quite sure I left my heart in SF, but it does appear that I
left my belt there. But at least it was an old belt.
Our flight was Wednesday at 6:25pm. We had our requisite bad meal at
the airport before going (Atlanta's airport, it must be said, is not
as bad as they say, but the food options are terrible) and loaded.
A-Chan was a fireball of energy at the airport, but the trip, all 5+
hours of it, didn't go so bad. She was more contained than she was on
her last flight 4.5 months ago, although she still needs an enormous
amount of attention and entertainment & she can't naturally go to
sleep even if she's tired. S eventually walked her around the
plane and got her asleep - which aggravated S's back but not to
the threshold.
We arrived at the airport and wandered to the shuttle that took us to
the BART station. BART was easy to navigate and A-chan eventually passed
out on her own in transit to Powell Station. We got there eventually
around 10pm. Magnificently, I had printed the wrong sheet out and
instead of having our hotel's info I only had the name and a vague
memory of where it looked on an overhead map and that it was on a
street named after somebody which turned into 5th south of Market.
That didn't win me any bonus points either, but thankfully we
immediately found it when we got out of the station.
We stayed at the Powell Hotel, and sure enough its street address was
on Cyril Whatever Avenue but its back entrance was on Powell. And from
our 4th floor room, we could see the turnaround from our window. Its a
99-year-old hotel and as such is quite distinguished, but it was still
less than a hundred dollars a night thanks to some Expedia special I
found. I don't know why it doesn't feature in guidebooks because I
thought it was a perfect place - a pretty small room in which the bed
took up more than half the space but that was fine with us. It was a
great base of operations for everything we did. Anyway, we got there
and went more or less straight to bed. None of us suffered jetlag, a
cause for celebration in itself.
We got up Thursday morning and after prepping got onto the Powell
Mason streetcar bound for North Beach. We got there a little after 9am
and consulted the Time Out SF book. Time Out gives a little walking
tour of North Beach, although we didn't really take it because I
didn't HAVE to see the retirement home that used to be Allen
Ginsberg's residence - cool but not crucial. What was crucial was
Caffe Trieste. We walked down Columbus from Washington Square park
until we got to the street that its on. We passed some of the other
apparent big names - Caffe Roma, the Cigar place - but it was only
Caffe Trieste that was crowded, to the point that it was a struggle to
get the stroller in and there was only one table we could sit at. But
we managed and it was worth it - my GOD how great it was! I had a
latte, S had coffee, and we got 3 pastries for the 3 of us - an
almond croissant, a biscotti shaped like a cookie, and some twisty
thing that looked good - fabulous, every bite of it. Its a testament
to the place that S loved it as much as she did, as she is not a
pastries & coffee type person. In fact she hasn't even drank coffee in
a couple of years, never having had a taste for it in the first place,
but she loved it there. Somebody played "That's Amore" on the jukebox
but then the next song was some opera thing. We could have stayed
there for about 4 hours in the back corner where we were seated
(across from the wall of photos) but there was a 19-month-old who
didn't live through the beat years so the ambience was a bit lost on
her. So out we went.
We took a few photos on the street and upon getting to the
intersection where City Lights is (which was just preparing to open)
saw a place called The Beat Museum. It wasn't in the guidebook but it
looked worth visiting. It was nice, $5 admittance, and old original
copies of literature, signed letters, photos, etc. I can now say I've
seen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky naked (I think I could've said that before
but just for posterity's sake). The back room had a video documentary
of Jack Kerouac they started up for me, but I felt guilty seeing as how I
could only watch about 2 minutes of it before leaving. They had a
giftshop, mostly containing the obvious authors and bebop t-shirts,
but I was going across the street to get my fix on that.
S strolled A-chan around outside while I was in City Lights, and as
such I gave myself a time limit of about 20 minutes. It was quite
overwhelming - I did make it to all 3 levels, but I didn't have the
easiest time navigating, particularly the main floor. I couldn't
figure out how the books were sorted, not that it would've made it any
easier to browse such a massive place on such a limited timescale. What I
did get was the following: a Gary Snyder collection whose name I can't
recall, the 50th anniversary of William S Burroughs' "Junky" (S expressed
interest in it & my cousin's pet rats ate the cover when I lent it to her years
ago which severely freaked me out), and a City Lights-published book
from last year documenting the "Howl" trial 50 years later which
looked pretty interesting. All fairly obvious choices. I also went to
the Eastern Religion section and bought a book written by a lady who
got dragged up and visited Lhasa in the 1920s back when it was
forbidden for women to visit the center of Tibetan Buddhism, which
sounded pretty interesting. I wanted to get a book that discusses how
Buddhism worked with Shinto to form a dual religion in Japan, which
seems to be where my head gravitates toward when it comes to grandiose
metaphysical statements, but I couldn't find much - and its not like I
might not have a better opportunity next week anyway. So I left with
all that, and complimented the cashier who was playing Sun Ra's "The
Singles" box during my shoptime.
I walked down Jack Kerouac Alley and met S and A-chan in the meld
of shops between Chinatown and North Beach. A-chan discovered a toy shop
window and we bought her a little toy car with opening doors (she's
very into cars for some reason). And then we walked up to the hill
back from whence we came.
We passed the Molinari Deli and decided to go in. In my past life I
used to frequent an Atlanta food messageboard and one of the main guys
there is the son of one of the Molinari Deli people. I since learned
that its a pretty respected place, and it was in the Time Out guide as
well. I wanted to see if they had burrata cheese, something I've been
dying to try - its been described as a fresh mozzarella cheese that
tastes like brie - decadent stuff. Nobody ever has it in Atlanta when
I'm looking for it, but sure enough there it was - we got that and
some crackers, and snacked on it outside the shop. Mind you this was
an hour after Caffe Trieste and on the way to lunch in Fisherman's
Wharf, but hey...it was our anniversary! Oddly enough the Deli was
also playing "That's Amore."
We then started the walk towards FW & came across Lombard Street. For
the touristy hell of it, we decided to go up it. A difficult task made
much more difficult by the stroller pushing. And that was just to get
to the bottom of the curvy part of it. S and A-chan stayed at the
base while I climbed to the top and took photos. But the hard part was
after I came back down and then had to push the stroller down the
hill, having to work against gravity to keep the stroller moving but
not reckless. Exhausting. The fact that I worked my body this hard yet
still put on 3.5 pounds during my stay is an attest to the good
culinary life we led while in California.
We got to FW and strolled around for a bit before deciding on food. I
haven't mentioned it yet but it was pretty damned cold, or at least it
was for us! So we decided to go to the Boudin place for lunch after
all, not just for the name but also because it promised indoor
seating. We didn't go to the Bistro part of it upstairs though, seeing
as how it appeared that the clam chowder was double the price. So we
ate downstairs, a sourdough bowl of clam chowder and a relatively
obscure Red Tail Ale for me (Anchor Steam isn't too hard to get in
Atlanta).
We then walked along FW toward the dreaded Pier 39, only for the sea
lions. A-chan does a cute sea lion imitation so it was fun to actually
show one to her in the flesh. S bought some sweets at a fudge
shop also - toffee (I LOVE toffee), white chocolate macadamia bark,
and white chocolate cranberry bark. A-chan eventually got bored of the
sea lions but didn't want to leave the area regardless, so we stayed
there for quite awhile.
Next was the Musee Mecanique, which I loved. I can't remember how I'd
first heard of it, but I've wanted to see it for years - they had just
moved it to FW in 2003 when we were planning to go the first time,
which made me really happy to know that at least something of value
was there. We were there for around 45 minutes. Leave it to my genes
that A-chan enjoyed the most gruesome thing they had - a guillotine
execution (she immediately said "More! More!" after it ended, the same
way she requests food or another verse of a song she likes). Stone
Mountain in Georgia has a similar room of old arcade stuff but this
was more bizarre and enrapturing. I took some photos which I can send to
you if you want to see what it looks like now - it may be a shadow of its
former self but it still made my afternoon. I bought a CD of music made
from some of the old organs there and we moved on.
At this point we were having to leave FW, so it shocked me that I
thought we'd have ample time to spare and we were actually having to
watch the clock. On our way out, we passed Ghirardelli Square so we
went in to buy the mandatory souvenirs for all the workmates who said
"Bring us back something from Ghiardelli Square!" We tempted the idea
of a sundae, but we weren't that crazy to have one 30 minutes before
our restaurant reservation.
We walked to Greens [a legendary vegetarian restaurant that ikahana
recommended for our anniversary] from there, passing the nice park where we saw
lots of cute dogs and a big statue that looked like one of the ghosts
from "Spirited Away." The first drops of rain hit us moments before
the restaurant - great. And S had just realized how much her back
was in pain, but thankfully she had an opportunity to sit for a few
hours.
Greens was a perfect way to spend an anniversary dinner. A-chan was
reasonably well-behaved, and the people were friendly there
regardless. The view was nice and scenic, and I liked the layout of
the building a lot - even if you don't know there's a Zen Buddhist
relationship to the restaurant you could kind of figure it out. We had:
-a bottle of some local Pinot Noir
-a selection of 2 California cheeses with almonds, olives, and greens
-stuffed portobello with crimini mushrooms, mashed potatoes (S)
-southwestern gratin with yams, rainbow chard (me)
-fromage blanc cheesecake with pistachio crust
and a latte to wrap it up. S honestly picked what I wanted but I
have to say that mine was hands down the best. We've got vegetarian
restaurants in the city but they always flood the menu with those
frickin' "fake meat" options that never
cease to piss us off. What a night. If only it hadn't been raining.
In fact it was raining as we left, and we had to prepare (umbrellas
being one of the things I hadn't packed, being a typical Atlantan, but
thankfully S called me on it). We had originally planned on
taking the Powell Hyde car back to the hotel, but instead we went to
Bus 30, I think, which our waiter told us was the nearest bus to take
us where we needed to go. It was honestly a stressful occurrence and
one that killed S's back again (about halfway along the way we
wondered why we didn't just hail a cab from the restaurant) but
eventually we got there. One good thing to come out of it, though, was
A-chan's immediate love of buses. She was THRILLED with it all and kept
saying "Bus! Bus!" for the rest of the night (and indeed the trip). We
got back to the hotel and all went to sleep shortly afterwards, not in
good spirits since S didn't think she'd be able to walk the next
day.
On Friday, though, her back felt much better after she got out of bed.
The rain was gone and it was still cold but sunny at least. We had
breakfast at a cafe across the street from a hotel which may be a
chain (Barbary Coast? Something like that) and it has nothing on Caffe
Trieste but it served the purpose. We then walked in the direction of
the Asian Art Museum, passing through the Tenderloin. Along this way
A-chan did something for the first time she'd continue to do all weekend
- in that she'd take off her shoes & socks when riding in the stroller
and would refuse to put them back on. Eventually we gave up and just
tried to bundle her as best as we could, although we'd continually get
looked at like we were bad parents (particularly in the Tenderloin for
some reason, where 2 people actually yelled at us). But what could we
do?
We made it to the Asian Art Museum right at opening time but noticed
there was a play area across the street that some kids were having a
field trip at. We took A-chan over there and let her play for an hour,
letting her swing, slide, and navigate the thing that looks like a
ship's steering wheel. She had a blast doing so and it made us feel
good - we wish we had more stuff like that around us, but oh well.
Along the way to the park, we passed what I had identified as the
Saigon Sandwich Shop, which had been written up in Time Out as well as
the Atlanta messageboard. We decided to get some sandwiches and sneak
them into the museum cafe - I had wanted to eat there too but when
pressed to make a choice...two sandwiches cost us $4.50 and satisfied
us for most of the day. At the cafe we sampled the seaweed salad (not
sweet like what you find in Atlanta) and I had a Sapporo after seeing
it cost only 25 cents more than tea. The $2.50 roast pork banh mi was
the first meat meal I have eaten in 2007, at least of my own free
choice, and it was good stuff if not the most orgasmic Vietnamese
experience I have ever had. S had the tofu banh mi and remarked
it had a taste different from virtually all other tofu she's ever had
& gave it a thumbs up.
We liked the Asian Art Museum although A-chan got bored. One cute thing
though - S taught her how to identify Buddha and when she sees
him she now claps her hands together and says "Namu" (a popular
opening to a Buddhist sutra). So she did that a lot in the museum. My
favorite things in there? The Indonesian puppet dolls...the modern
Korean paintings...and the Japanese haniwa (the old ancient figures).
Alas none of those things really featured in the museum catalog.
There's a big open space in the lobby area, where A-chan played for
literally an hour & we met a dad from Holland whose daughter was a
couple of months younger than A-chan. We sympathized with each other's
tales of museumgoing in the parental lifestyle but it was fun
regardless. We eventually left and went to the BART station at Civic
Center.
We wound up at the 24th Street Mission station, per your suggestion.
Had you not said anything, we would've probably gone to 16th, and
worked Mission Dolores into the itinerary. Honestly, we realized that
Mission Dolores probably wouldn't fit on the timeline since we showed
up much later than expected, so its probably a blessing that it
happened the way it did. So we got out of the station and proceeded
east on 24th as you recommended. We didn't go too far, since reality
reminded us that S was still fragile, but we walked a ways and
went to a great Aztec shop. We then went back to Mission and proceeded
to walk north.
I'll summarize as quick as I can. Lots of friendly people waving to
A-chan. The hippest thrift stores I've ever seen (Os Mutantes over a
thrift store stereo system??). Lots of enticing food. I must say,
though, its very similar to a couple of streets we have here in
Atlanta, albeit its impossible to navigate the Atlanta ones by foot.
It was a great time though - the murals were as plentiful as you
described. The one drawback we had was A-chan's insistence on neither
the shoes nor riding in the stroller. We eventually went to a big
thrift where we bought a big Cookie Monster sweater that met her
approval and an electronic toy piano that she fell in love with. We
usually try not to distract her, especially with cheap electronic
stuff, but it saved us that afternoon. We walked to 17th and crossed
over to Valencia.
At Valencia we headed for the Indian ice cream place you recommended -
S had black sesame, and I had cardamon rose (sampling chai tea as
well). So good...and the first ice cream A-chan's ever had. We have a
vibrant Indian community in Atlanta but Indian ice cream is a new one
on me. S bought some cards in the shop next door and we headed
south.
So you won't beat me up, we went to the Women's Building and saw the
giant mural there. Just kidding...it was indeed marvelous. The whole
concept of murals, that one in particular - I don't know how they can
make them as perfect as they are. It ended up being the only picture I
took in the Mission - not sure why I was so camera shy that day, but
that was the thing I knew I had to have.
We continued down Valencia to Aquarius Records. S stayed with A-chan
outside so I made it quick. I said 5 things max, and I got my 5 things
quickly. Even smaller than Twisted Village [the Cambridge, MA shop that
gets my vote for best record shop in America], and indeed quite narrow,
but inviting all the same. Kinda odd that they put the protective
packaging around the price tag which obscures how much the CDs cost
but nonetheless...I presented my Harvey Milk t-shirt, to which Andee
came out and offered thanks. He gave me an AQ t-shirt in return, a
nice surprise. Everyone struck me as very mellow, not as excitable as
their update personas might suggest. But I am probably one to talk myself.
It was a good quick time though - like some people enjoy visiting
famous monuments, I enjoy visiting the great record stores of the world.
From this point, back up Valencia, across to Mission, and dinner. I
know you told me otherwise, not to pick out any place in particular,
but I couldn't help it - after seeing it written up in the
altweeklies, again for their veggie burrito, I had to go to Taqueria
Can-Cun [with apologies to jtemperance as we walked right by El Toro].
S and I both got one, I had an horchata to drink, and we
got a plain quesadilla for A-chan. Immediate Atlanta comparisons...the
burrito's about the same size as the ones we have here at the
authentic taquerias. Tortilla is a bit thicker. Cheese is MUCH better.
We get chips at our gringo burrito joints, but not at the true
taquerias so that was a nice touch. The pico de gallo & guacamole they
gave us were both spicy and delicious - we get more options at the
taquerias here via a salsa bar, but they can't measure up to what we
had in SF. So all in all, I think I'd classify it as a better burrito,
although thankfully one that won't make me forever rue my options
here. The quesadilla, on the other hand, FAR outclassed what we get
here and at $2.75 almost made me want to cry. Thank goodness I don't
have a major quesadilla jones. I loved how the horchata was kept in a
big barrel under the counter, like sangria at a house party. Here the
aguas frescas are always in something like transparent coke
dispensers. And there were some ladies in there who looked like they
were celebrating the 4.20 commemmoration and went on about how
beautiful A-chan was, which made it even more of an experience. God
bless the Mission.
At that point we headed back to the station. The only bad thing I can
say about our experience is that there aren't any real places to
change babies in the area - we had to make do in a neglected area of
the station. That done, we headed back to Powell St. S was a bit
tired when we got back and needed to rest her back, and A-chan still
wanted to go outside (literally yelling "Outside! Outside!") so the
two of us went out for a stroll.
We wandered up to Union Square, passing the Rasputin record shop along
the way. I walked in but saw that I needed to go to the next floor for
indies so walked out. I walked the south side of Union Square around
8:30 and didn't see much happening. I then walked south on Stockton,
visiting the first floor of the Virgin store, and then took Market St
east. I turned south on 3rd to get a view of SFMOMA, and then walked
by the Yerba Buena Center, surprised to see they had an R. Crumb
exhibit going on! How San Francisco is that?! I could've sworn I
looked their events up online but apparently not...A-chan fell asleep at
this point so we headed back to the hotel, stopping at another
apparent chain we don't have (The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf?) for an
unremarkable latte.
Saturday morning, now. We woke up around 8, and while they rested I
went out to get breakfast. I ended up getting it at Caffe Kuleto,
which I saw the night before. I later found out its in the Time Out
guide, and no explanation needed. The latte was great (they use Illy,
S's apparent fave) and they had nice pastries too - I had one
called a bombolino, something I've never seen in this Italian-deprived
town, but its apparently big in Japan. Like a doughnut shaped like a
stick of margarine, to give you an idea of its shape and caloric
content.
The big debate was what to do when we were ready to head out.
Originally we planned to visit SFMOMA, have lunch in the cafe, and
then head to the Haight. Also there was the thought of seeing the
ocean, which I really wanted to see thanks to you. And it didn't help
that S had heard on the bus that it was supposed to rain on
Saturday & it was overcast at 9am. We decided to go to the ocean, then
Haight, and then SFMOMA.
A-chan behaved well on the MUNI ride to Ocean Beach, even when our 2-car
train had significant problems and they had to derail one of the cars.
We eventually made it out there, and went to the beach. You're right,
its nothing like the Atlantic. In fact its very much like Japan, the
way you see the mountains descend right into the Pacific. You could
see that the beach must really get subsumed by the ocean when the tide
is high too. We stayed there for about 15 minutes, collecting sand
dollars, writing our names in the sand, watching the surfers, etc, and
then it was time to go. The train was just getting ready to leave so
we couldn't visit the coffeeshop but oh well. You can see we weren't
that deprived of coffee anyway.
Off we went. I loved some of the pure West Coast things we saw along
the way. Like the cafe that had a big 49ers football helmet and a
Miller Lite neon sign alongside the description of its food on the
windowpane underneath: "falafel, hummus," etc. And the Indian
Restaurant/Pizza takeout place. It was wonderful though a little
bittersweet, knowing how it is in Atlanta.
So anyway...we got off the Muni and walked north to Golden Gate Park.
We roamed the southeast section of the park, not seeing a lot but
getting a general feel for it. We have a lot of parks in Atlanta, but
they tend to be near major roadways and don't really give you a good
"Park" kind of feeling, so it was again nice and a little melancholy
to be in such a hushed atmosphere. But then we walked by a major trash
accumulation part of it, kind of a nice rounding of it all. We
unknowingly exited the park directly at the end of Haight St, so we
crossed and headed to my destiny.
Amoeba Music is all you made it out to be. That said, I would have to be the
one poor schmuck who was looking for something they don't have (the
new Euros Childs album), but that didn't stop me from finding a
billion other things. The staff was great too - they let us use their
bathroom for changing A-chan and they kept trying to make her smile (and
succeeding). I said I wouldn't buy $200 worth of stuff there, and I
didn't. A mere $199.46 instead. Go self-control!
We had lunch at a Mediterranean place (Kan Zan?) down the street, a
sit-on-the-floor type person with a real hippie-chick of a waitress.
We had a mixture of cold and hot meze, along with a warm red wine
spiced with cinnamon for me. Good stuff, nothing fantastic but you can
never go wrong with Middle Eastern cuisine.
We then walked a bit further down Haight, picking up a flyer for the
repertory theater they have (a Jodorowsky film festival going on right
now - sigh) and wandering into a shop or two. By this time the rain
started to come again, so we boarded Bus 71 and headed towards SFMOMA.
A-chan was thrilled.
When we arrived, S and I decided to split up. Having no idea how
long it would take to go to SFMOMA, she went that way and I went to
Yerba Buena for the Crumb show since it goes without saying that I'm
a gigantic fan. I'd seen most of what they had before but
none of it in person. Stuff like the original comics that Robert and
Charles did, the original back cover of Zap #0 (seeing the whited-out
areas that washed out in print), etc. Just mindblowing to see the
originals of some of the most iconic Crumb drawings and see them done
on graphing paper. There was also a photo of a mural Crumb did in the
Mission back in the 70s, too. Just mindblowing stuff.
I met S in the lobby of SFMOMA. There were 2 exhibits there, both
of which coincidentally enough had been in New York when we visited
back in November. So we skipped them and visited the brief bit of the
permanent collection. I really really liked the Clifford Still room -
I'd never given him much thought one way or the other and abstract
expressionism isn't my favorite genre but the room suited him really
well. I also liked the Diego Riveras they had, the surreal side of him
that I tend to forget about. When we finished we did go to one of the
exhibits, focusing on Picasso's influence on American painters, but we
flew through it because it was too crowded for A-chan's liking. The
actual building itself was nice too although crazy - there were some
interviews of some sort going on while we were there, so people were
being filmed and photographed everywhere we turned around. And A-chan
wasn't in a good mood either so it made it all a bit crazy. Still,
nice to go.
The rain was coming down by then so we went back to the hotel and
debated on dinner. Since I originally thought we'd be in the Haight at
dinnertime I had no leads, and everything around Union Square
suggested either chain or pricey. The intriguing places listed in Time
Out had hour-long waits at 5:45. Leave it to the Bay-Guardian to save
us. They reviewed Out The Door, which is a more affordable and casual
version of the Slanted Door (which I think I asked you about). It was
virtually across the street from us and told us we wouldn't have to
wait long. Granted we didn't know it was in a mall (the most upscale
mall I've seen on this continent, but a mall nonetheless) but that
really made it perfect. A loud place, especially in a mall setting, is
a godsend when you've got a kid who can be unpredictable. But A-chan was
good and the food was great. We split the biggest vegetarian spring
rolls I've ever seen, and I had vermicelli cooked with dungeness crab,
black trumpet mushrooms, and asparagus. A bit heavy but very
rewarding. And we walked it off afterwards as A-chan traipsed around the
mall - they had a great, great kids section inside the changing area
that she played on for a solid half-hour with no assistance from us.
Again, one of those "we want to live here!" moments. People continued
to compliment A-chan until closing time, and we then headed back to the
hotel to pack up.
And Sunday was nothing more than waking up, getting one last latte,
and heading out the door. The flight was 4 hours and painless, and I
had one last burrito at the Oakland airport (which, while not quite
the Mission, was still pretty good). We had a nice neighbor on the
flight back, we had a safe drive back, and A-chan was in a good mood.
And then, just after getting her bath, she walked to our door, pointed
towards it like she's getting ready to go out, and said "Bus! Bus!"
Somebody may have left their heart in San Francisco after all...
And now its time for us to roll up for the mystery tour once again - in less than 72 hours, we will be taking that 6800-mile flight to the motherland once again. You've probably read more than enough Japanese trip diaries from me in the past, so I don't know if I'll do one or not (if that's not a sickening populist cry for love, what is?). So mata ne until then, and if you bothered to read any of this post, thanks. And if you didn't...no thanks?
I'm not quite sure I left my heart in SF, but it does appear that I
left my belt there. But at least it was an old belt.
Our flight was Wednesday at 6:25pm. We had our requisite bad meal at
the airport before going (Atlanta's airport, it must be said, is not
as bad as they say, but the food options are terrible) and loaded.
A-Chan was a fireball of energy at the airport, but the trip, all 5+
hours of it, didn't go so bad. She was more contained than she was on
her last flight 4.5 months ago, although she still needs an enormous
amount of attention and entertainment & she can't naturally go to
sleep even if she's tired. S eventually walked her around the
plane and got her asleep - which aggravated S's back but not to
the threshold.
We arrived at the airport and wandered to the shuttle that took us to
the BART station. BART was easy to navigate and A-chan eventually passed
out on her own in transit to Powell Station. We got there eventually
around 10pm. Magnificently, I had printed the wrong sheet out and
instead of having our hotel's info I only had the name and a vague
memory of where it looked on an overhead map and that it was on a
street named after somebody which turned into 5th south of Market.
That didn't win me any bonus points either, but thankfully we
immediately found it when we got out of the station.
We stayed at the Powell Hotel, and sure enough its street address was
on Cyril Whatever Avenue but its back entrance was on Powell. And from
our 4th floor room, we could see the turnaround from our window. Its a
99-year-old hotel and as such is quite distinguished, but it was still
less than a hundred dollars a night thanks to some Expedia special I
found. I don't know why it doesn't feature in guidebooks because I
thought it was a perfect place - a pretty small room in which the bed
took up more than half the space but that was fine with us. It was a
great base of operations for everything we did. Anyway, we got there
and went more or less straight to bed. None of us suffered jetlag, a
cause for celebration in itself.
We got up Thursday morning and after prepping got onto the Powell
Mason streetcar bound for North Beach. We got there a little after 9am
and consulted the Time Out SF book. Time Out gives a little walking
tour of North Beach, although we didn't really take it because I
didn't HAVE to see the retirement home that used to be Allen
Ginsberg's residence - cool but not crucial. What was crucial was
Caffe Trieste. We walked down Columbus from Washington Square park
until we got to the street that its on. We passed some of the other
apparent big names - Caffe Roma, the Cigar place - but it was only
Caffe Trieste that was crowded, to the point that it was a struggle to
get the stroller in and there was only one table we could sit at. But
we managed and it was worth it - my GOD how great it was! I had a
latte, S had coffee, and we got 3 pastries for the 3 of us - an
almond croissant, a biscotti shaped like a cookie, and some twisty
thing that looked good - fabulous, every bite of it. Its a testament
to the place that S loved it as much as she did, as she is not a
pastries & coffee type person. In fact she hasn't even drank coffee in
a couple of years, never having had a taste for it in the first place,
but she loved it there. Somebody played "That's Amore" on the jukebox
but then the next song was some opera thing. We could have stayed
there for about 4 hours in the back corner where we were seated
(across from the wall of photos) but there was a 19-month-old who
didn't live through the beat years so the ambience was a bit lost on
her. So out we went.
We took a few photos on the street and upon getting to the
intersection where City Lights is (which was just preparing to open)
saw a place called The Beat Museum. It wasn't in the guidebook but it
looked worth visiting. It was nice, $5 admittance, and old original
copies of literature, signed letters, photos, etc. I can now say I've
seen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky naked (I think I could've said that before
but just for posterity's sake). The back room had a video documentary
of Jack Kerouac they started up for me, but I felt guilty seeing as how I
could only watch about 2 minutes of it before leaving. They had a
giftshop, mostly containing the obvious authors and bebop t-shirts,
but I was going across the street to get my fix on that.
S strolled A-chan around outside while I was in City Lights, and as
such I gave myself a time limit of about 20 minutes. It was quite
overwhelming - I did make it to all 3 levels, but I didn't have the
easiest time navigating, particularly the main floor. I couldn't
figure out how the books were sorted, not that it would've made it any
easier to browse such a massive place on such a limited timescale. What I
did get was the following: a Gary Snyder collection whose name I can't
recall, the 50th anniversary of William S Burroughs' "Junky" (S expressed
interest in it & my cousin's pet rats ate the cover when I lent it to her years
ago which severely freaked me out), and a City Lights-published book
from last year documenting the "Howl" trial 50 years later which
looked pretty interesting. All fairly obvious choices. I also went to
the Eastern Religion section and bought a book written by a lady who
got dragged up and visited Lhasa in the 1920s back when it was
forbidden for women to visit the center of Tibetan Buddhism, which
sounded pretty interesting. I wanted to get a book that discusses how
Buddhism worked with Shinto to form a dual religion in Japan, which
seems to be where my head gravitates toward when it comes to grandiose
metaphysical statements, but I couldn't find much - and its not like I
might not have a better opportunity next week anyway. So I left with
all that, and complimented the cashier who was playing Sun Ra's "The
Singles" box during my shoptime.
I walked down Jack Kerouac Alley and met S and A-chan in the meld
of shops between Chinatown and North Beach. A-chan discovered a toy shop
window and we bought her a little toy car with opening doors (she's
very into cars for some reason). And then we walked up to the hill
back from whence we came.
We passed the Molinari Deli and decided to go in. In my past life I
used to frequent an Atlanta food messageboard and one of the main guys
there is the son of one of the Molinari Deli people. I since learned
that its a pretty respected place, and it was in the Time Out guide as
well. I wanted to see if they had burrata cheese, something I've been
dying to try - its been described as a fresh mozzarella cheese that
tastes like brie - decadent stuff. Nobody ever has it in Atlanta when
I'm looking for it, but sure enough there it was - we got that and
some crackers, and snacked on it outside the shop. Mind you this was
an hour after Caffe Trieste and on the way to lunch in Fisherman's
Wharf, but hey...it was our anniversary! Oddly enough the Deli was
also playing "That's Amore."
We then started the walk towards FW & came across Lombard Street. For
the touristy hell of it, we decided to go up it. A difficult task made
much more difficult by the stroller pushing. And that was just to get
to the bottom of the curvy part of it. S and A-chan stayed at the
base while I climbed to the top and took photos. But the hard part was
after I came back down and then had to push the stroller down the
hill, having to work against gravity to keep the stroller moving but
not reckless. Exhausting. The fact that I worked my body this hard yet
still put on 3.5 pounds during my stay is an attest to the good
culinary life we led while in California.
We got to FW and strolled around for a bit before deciding on food. I
haven't mentioned it yet but it was pretty damned cold, or at least it
was for us! So we decided to go to the Boudin place for lunch after
all, not just for the name but also because it promised indoor
seating. We didn't go to the Bistro part of it upstairs though, seeing
as how it appeared that the clam chowder was double the price. So we
ate downstairs, a sourdough bowl of clam chowder and a relatively
obscure Red Tail Ale for me (Anchor Steam isn't too hard to get in
Atlanta).
We then walked along FW toward the dreaded Pier 39, only for the sea
lions. A-chan does a cute sea lion imitation so it was fun to actually
show one to her in the flesh. S bought some sweets at a fudge
shop also - toffee (I LOVE toffee), white chocolate macadamia bark,
and white chocolate cranberry bark. A-chan eventually got bored of the
sea lions but didn't want to leave the area regardless, so we stayed
there for quite awhile.
Next was the Musee Mecanique, which I loved. I can't remember how I'd
first heard of it, but I've wanted to see it for years - they had just
moved it to FW in 2003 when we were planning to go the first time,
which made me really happy to know that at least something of value
was there. We were there for around 45 minutes. Leave it to my genes
that A-chan enjoyed the most gruesome thing they had - a guillotine
execution (she immediately said "More! More!" after it ended, the same
way she requests food or another verse of a song she likes). Stone
Mountain in Georgia has a similar room of old arcade stuff but this
was more bizarre and enrapturing. I took some photos which I can send to
you if you want to see what it looks like now - it may be a shadow of its
former self but it still made my afternoon. I bought a CD of music made
from some of the old organs there and we moved on.
At this point we were having to leave FW, so it shocked me that I
thought we'd have ample time to spare and we were actually having to
watch the clock. On our way out, we passed Ghirardelli Square so we
went in to buy the mandatory souvenirs for all the workmates who said
"Bring us back something from Ghiardelli Square!" We tempted the idea
of a sundae, but we weren't that crazy to have one 30 minutes before
our restaurant reservation.
We walked to Greens [a legendary vegetarian restaurant that ikahana
recommended for our anniversary] from there, passing the nice park where we saw
lots of cute dogs and a big statue that looked like one of the ghosts
from "Spirited Away." The first drops of rain hit us moments before
the restaurant - great. And S had just realized how much her back
was in pain, but thankfully she had an opportunity to sit for a few
hours.
Greens was a perfect way to spend an anniversary dinner. A-chan was
reasonably well-behaved, and the people were friendly there
regardless. The view was nice and scenic, and I liked the layout of
the building a lot - even if you don't know there's a Zen Buddhist
relationship to the restaurant you could kind of figure it out. We had:
-a bottle of some local Pinot Noir
-a selection of 2 California cheeses with almonds, olives, and greens
-stuffed portobello with crimini mushrooms, mashed potatoes (S)
-southwestern gratin with yams, rainbow chard (me)
-fromage blanc cheesecake with pistachio crust
and a latte to wrap it up. S honestly picked what I wanted but I
have to say that mine was hands down the best. We've got vegetarian
restaurants in the city but they always flood the menu with those
frickin' "fake meat" options that never
cease to piss us off. What a night. If only it hadn't been raining.
In fact it was raining as we left, and we had to prepare (umbrellas
being one of the things I hadn't packed, being a typical Atlantan, but
thankfully S called me on it). We had originally planned on
taking the Powell Hyde car back to the hotel, but instead we went to
Bus 30, I think, which our waiter told us was the nearest bus to take
us where we needed to go. It was honestly a stressful occurrence and
one that killed S's back again (about halfway along the way we
wondered why we didn't just hail a cab from the restaurant) but
eventually we got there. One good thing to come out of it, though, was
A-chan's immediate love of buses. She was THRILLED with it all and kept
saying "Bus! Bus!" for the rest of the night (and indeed the trip). We
got back to the hotel and all went to sleep shortly afterwards, not in
good spirits since S didn't think she'd be able to walk the next
day.
On Friday, though, her back felt much better after she got out of bed.
The rain was gone and it was still cold but sunny at least. We had
breakfast at a cafe across the street from a hotel which may be a
chain (Barbary Coast? Something like that) and it has nothing on Caffe
Trieste but it served the purpose. We then walked in the direction of
the Asian Art Museum, passing through the Tenderloin. Along this way
A-chan did something for the first time she'd continue to do all weekend
- in that she'd take off her shoes & socks when riding in the stroller
and would refuse to put them back on. Eventually we gave up and just
tried to bundle her as best as we could, although we'd continually get
looked at like we were bad parents (particularly in the Tenderloin for
some reason, where 2 people actually yelled at us). But what could we
do?
We made it to the Asian Art Museum right at opening time but noticed
there was a play area across the street that some kids were having a
field trip at. We took A-chan over there and let her play for an hour,
letting her swing, slide, and navigate the thing that looks like a
ship's steering wheel. She had a blast doing so and it made us feel
good - we wish we had more stuff like that around us, but oh well.
Along the way to the park, we passed what I had identified as the
Saigon Sandwich Shop, which had been written up in Time Out as well as
the Atlanta messageboard. We decided to get some sandwiches and sneak
them into the museum cafe - I had wanted to eat there too but when
pressed to make a choice...two sandwiches cost us $4.50 and satisfied
us for most of the day. At the cafe we sampled the seaweed salad (not
sweet like what you find in Atlanta) and I had a Sapporo after seeing
it cost only 25 cents more than tea. The $2.50 roast pork banh mi was
the first meat meal I have eaten in 2007, at least of my own free
choice, and it was good stuff if not the most orgasmic Vietnamese
experience I have ever had. S had the tofu banh mi and remarked
it had a taste different from virtually all other tofu she's ever had
& gave it a thumbs up.
We liked the Asian Art Museum although A-chan got bored. One cute thing
though - S taught her how to identify Buddha and when she sees
him she now claps her hands together and says "Namu" (a popular
opening to a Buddhist sutra). So she did that a lot in the museum. My
favorite things in there? The Indonesian puppet dolls...the modern
Korean paintings...and the Japanese haniwa (the old ancient figures).
Alas none of those things really featured in the museum catalog.
There's a big open space in the lobby area, where A-chan played for
literally an hour & we met a dad from Holland whose daughter was a
couple of months younger than A-chan. We sympathized with each other's
tales of museumgoing in the parental lifestyle but it was fun
regardless. We eventually left and went to the BART station at Civic
Center.
We wound up at the 24th Street Mission station, per your suggestion.
Had you not said anything, we would've probably gone to 16th, and
worked Mission Dolores into the itinerary. Honestly, we realized that
Mission Dolores probably wouldn't fit on the timeline since we showed
up much later than expected, so its probably a blessing that it
happened the way it did. So we got out of the station and proceeded
east on 24th as you recommended. We didn't go too far, since reality
reminded us that S was still fragile, but we walked a ways and
went to a great Aztec shop. We then went back to Mission and proceeded
to walk north.
I'll summarize as quick as I can. Lots of friendly people waving to
A-chan. The hippest thrift stores I've ever seen (Os Mutantes over a
thrift store stereo system??). Lots of enticing food. I must say,
though, its very similar to a couple of streets we have here in
Atlanta, albeit its impossible to navigate the Atlanta ones by foot.
It was a great time though - the murals were as plentiful as you
described. The one drawback we had was A-chan's insistence on neither
the shoes nor riding in the stroller. We eventually went to a big
thrift where we bought a big Cookie Monster sweater that met her
approval and an electronic toy piano that she fell in love with. We
usually try not to distract her, especially with cheap electronic
stuff, but it saved us that afternoon. We walked to 17th and crossed
over to Valencia.
At Valencia we headed for the Indian ice cream place you recommended -
S had black sesame, and I had cardamon rose (sampling chai tea as
well). So good...and the first ice cream A-chan's ever had. We have a
vibrant Indian community in Atlanta but Indian ice cream is a new one
on me. S bought some cards in the shop next door and we headed
south.
So you won't beat me up, we went to the Women's Building and saw the
giant mural there. Just kidding...it was indeed marvelous. The whole
concept of murals, that one in particular - I don't know how they can
make them as perfect as they are. It ended up being the only picture I
took in the Mission - not sure why I was so camera shy that day, but
that was the thing I knew I had to have.
We continued down Valencia to Aquarius Records. S stayed with A-chan
outside so I made it quick. I said 5 things max, and I got my 5 things
quickly. Even smaller than Twisted Village [the Cambridge, MA shop that
gets my vote for best record shop in America], and indeed quite narrow,
but inviting all the same. Kinda odd that they put the protective
packaging around the price tag which obscures how much the CDs cost
but nonetheless...I presented my Harvey Milk t-shirt, to which Andee
came out and offered thanks. He gave me an AQ t-shirt in return, a
nice surprise. Everyone struck me as very mellow, not as excitable as
their update personas might suggest. But I am probably one to talk myself.
It was a good quick time though - like some people enjoy visiting
famous monuments, I enjoy visiting the great record stores of the world.
From this point, back up Valencia, across to Mission, and dinner. I
know you told me otherwise, not to pick out any place in particular,
but I couldn't help it - after seeing it written up in the
altweeklies, again for their veggie burrito, I had to go to Taqueria
Can-Cun [with apologies to jtemperance as we walked right by El Toro].
S and I both got one, I had an horchata to drink, and we
got a plain quesadilla for A-chan. Immediate Atlanta comparisons...the
burrito's about the same size as the ones we have here at the
authentic taquerias. Tortilla is a bit thicker. Cheese is MUCH better.
We get chips at our gringo burrito joints, but not at the true
taquerias so that was a nice touch. The pico de gallo & guacamole they
gave us were both spicy and delicious - we get more options at the
taquerias here via a salsa bar, but they can't measure up to what we
had in SF. So all in all, I think I'd classify it as a better burrito,
although thankfully one that won't make me forever rue my options
here. The quesadilla, on the other hand, FAR outclassed what we get
here and at $2.75 almost made me want to cry. Thank goodness I don't
have a major quesadilla jones. I loved how the horchata was kept in a
big barrel under the counter, like sangria at a house party. Here the
aguas frescas are always in something like transparent coke
dispensers. And there were some ladies in there who looked like they
were celebrating the 4.20 commemmoration and went on about how
beautiful A-chan was, which made it even more of an experience. God
bless the Mission.
At that point we headed back to the station. The only bad thing I can
say about our experience is that there aren't any real places to
change babies in the area - we had to make do in a neglected area of
the station. That done, we headed back to Powell St. S was a bit
tired when we got back and needed to rest her back, and A-chan still
wanted to go outside (literally yelling "Outside! Outside!") so the
two of us went out for a stroll.
We wandered up to Union Square, passing the Rasputin record shop along
the way. I walked in but saw that I needed to go to the next floor for
indies so walked out. I walked the south side of Union Square around
8:30 and didn't see much happening. I then walked south on Stockton,
visiting the first floor of the Virgin store, and then took Market St
east. I turned south on 3rd to get a view of SFMOMA, and then walked
by the Yerba Buena Center, surprised to see they had an R. Crumb
exhibit going on! How San Francisco is that?! I could've sworn I
looked their events up online but apparently not...A-chan fell asleep at
this point so we headed back to the hotel, stopping at another
apparent chain we don't have (The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf?) for an
unremarkable latte.
Saturday morning, now. We woke up around 8, and while they rested I
went out to get breakfast. I ended up getting it at Caffe Kuleto,
which I saw the night before. I later found out its in the Time Out
guide, and no explanation needed. The latte was great (they use Illy,
S's apparent fave) and they had nice pastries too - I had one
called a bombolino, something I've never seen in this Italian-deprived
town, but its apparently big in Japan. Like a doughnut shaped like a
stick of margarine, to give you an idea of its shape and caloric
content.
The big debate was what to do when we were ready to head out.
Originally we planned to visit SFMOMA, have lunch in the cafe, and
then head to the Haight. Also there was the thought of seeing the
ocean, which I really wanted to see thanks to you. And it didn't help
that S had heard on the bus that it was supposed to rain on
Saturday & it was overcast at 9am. We decided to go to the ocean, then
Haight, and then SFMOMA.
A-chan behaved well on the MUNI ride to Ocean Beach, even when our 2-car
train had significant problems and they had to derail one of the cars.
We eventually made it out there, and went to the beach. You're right,
its nothing like the Atlantic. In fact its very much like Japan, the
way you see the mountains descend right into the Pacific. You could
see that the beach must really get subsumed by the ocean when the tide
is high too. We stayed there for about 15 minutes, collecting sand
dollars, writing our names in the sand, watching the surfers, etc, and
then it was time to go. The train was just getting ready to leave so
we couldn't visit the coffeeshop but oh well. You can see we weren't
that deprived of coffee anyway.
Off we went. I loved some of the pure West Coast things we saw along
the way. Like the cafe that had a big 49ers football helmet and a
Miller Lite neon sign alongside the description of its food on the
windowpane underneath: "falafel, hummus," etc. And the Indian
Restaurant/Pizza takeout place. It was wonderful though a little
bittersweet, knowing how it is in Atlanta.
So anyway...we got off the Muni and walked north to Golden Gate Park.
We roamed the southeast section of the park, not seeing a lot but
getting a general feel for it. We have a lot of parks in Atlanta, but
they tend to be near major roadways and don't really give you a good
"Park" kind of feeling, so it was again nice and a little melancholy
to be in such a hushed atmosphere. But then we walked by a major trash
accumulation part of it, kind of a nice rounding of it all. We
unknowingly exited the park directly at the end of Haight St, so we
crossed and headed to my destiny.
Amoeba Music is all you made it out to be. That said, I would have to be the
one poor schmuck who was looking for something they don't have (the
new Euros Childs album), but that didn't stop me from finding a
billion other things. The staff was great too - they let us use their
bathroom for changing A-chan and they kept trying to make her smile (and
succeeding). I said I wouldn't buy $200 worth of stuff there, and I
didn't. A mere $199.46 instead. Go self-control!
We had lunch at a Mediterranean place (Kan Zan?) down the street, a
sit-on-the-floor type person with a real hippie-chick of a waitress.
We had a mixture of cold and hot meze, along with a warm red wine
spiced with cinnamon for me. Good stuff, nothing fantastic but you can
never go wrong with Middle Eastern cuisine.
We then walked a bit further down Haight, picking up a flyer for the
repertory theater they have (a Jodorowsky film festival going on right
now - sigh) and wandering into a shop or two. By this time the rain
started to come again, so we boarded Bus 71 and headed towards SFMOMA.
A-chan was thrilled.
When we arrived, S and I decided to split up. Having no idea how
long it would take to go to SFMOMA, she went that way and I went to
Yerba Buena for the Crumb show since it goes without saying that I'm
a gigantic fan. I'd seen most of what they had before but
none of it in person. Stuff like the original comics that Robert and
Charles did, the original back cover of Zap #0 (seeing the whited-out
areas that washed out in print), etc. Just mindblowing to see the
originals of some of the most iconic Crumb drawings and see them done
on graphing paper. There was also a photo of a mural Crumb did in the
Mission back in the 70s, too. Just mindblowing stuff.
I met S in the lobby of SFMOMA. There were 2 exhibits there, both
of which coincidentally enough had been in New York when we visited
back in November. So we skipped them and visited the brief bit of the
permanent collection. I really really liked the Clifford Still room -
I'd never given him much thought one way or the other and abstract
expressionism isn't my favorite genre but the room suited him really
well. I also liked the Diego Riveras they had, the surreal side of him
that I tend to forget about. When we finished we did go to one of the
exhibits, focusing on Picasso's influence on American painters, but we
flew through it because it was too crowded for A-chan's liking. The
actual building itself was nice too although crazy - there were some
interviews of some sort going on while we were there, so people were
being filmed and photographed everywhere we turned around. And A-chan
wasn't in a good mood either so it made it all a bit crazy. Still,
nice to go.
The rain was coming down by then so we went back to the hotel and
debated on dinner. Since I originally thought we'd be in the Haight at
dinnertime I had no leads, and everything around Union Square
suggested either chain or pricey. The intriguing places listed in Time
Out had hour-long waits at 5:45. Leave it to the Bay-Guardian to save
us. They reviewed Out The Door, which is a more affordable and casual
version of the Slanted Door (which I think I asked you about). It was
virtually across the street from us and told us we wouldn't have to
wait long. Granted we didn't know it was in a mall (the most upscale
mall I've seen on this continent, but a mall nonetheless) but that
really made it perfect. A loud place, especially in a mall setting, is
a godsend when you've got a kid who can be unpredictable. But A-chan was
good and the food was great. We split the biggest vegetarian spring
rolls I've ever seen, and I had vermicelli cooked with dungeness crab,
black trumpet mushrooms, and asparagus. A bit heavy but very
rewarding. And we walked it off afterwards as A-chan traipsed around the
mall - they had a great, great kids section inside the changing area
that she played on for a solid half-hour with no assistance from us.
Again, one of those "we want to live here!" moments. People continued
to compliment A-chan until closing time, and we then headed back to the
hotel to pack up.
And Sunday was nothing more than waking up, getting one last latte,
and heading out the door. The flight was 4 hours and painless, and I
had one last burrito at the Oakland airport (which, while not quite
the Mission, was still pretty good). We had a nice neighbor on the
flight back, we had a safe drive back, and A-chan was in a good mood.
And then, just after getting her bath, she walked to our door, pointed
towards it like she's getting ready to go out, and said "Bus! Bus!"
Somebody may have left their heart in San Francisco after all...
And now its time for us to roll up for the mystery tour once again - in less than 72 hours, we will be taking that 6800-mile flight to the motherland once again. You've probably read more than enough Japanese trip diaries from me in the past, so I don't know if I'll do one or not (if that's not a sickening populist cry for love, what is?). So mata ne until then, and if you bothered to read any of this post, thanks. And if you didn't...no thanks?