If your going to San Francisco...

Pretty tired from my first day in San Fran so I'll keep this short. I started the day by taking the Caltrain in from San Jose to San Fran. After grabbing a croissant and coffee for breakfast, I walked up to Union Park not too far away from the Caltrain station, after which I continued upwards to the famous Chinatown gate, and entered Chinatown. That in itself was very cool, as there we moments when I realized I was the only non-asian person on the street and all the conversation around me was taking place in Chinese. After taking some pictures of the Chinese architecture and of the large hills of the financial district (right next to Chinatown).

I made my way back to Market St (the main one in San Fran) and took a bus to Height Ashberry. I started at Beanou Vista Park, taking pictures of the city from the large hill there (including a few cool ones of the Golden Gate Bridge enshrouded in fog in the distance), and continued on. I visited and snapped some pictures of the famous landmarks in Height Ashberry, including the Grateful Dead house at 710 Ashberry and Amoeba records. It goes without saying what Chinatown is to the Chinese, Height-Ashberry is to hippies. It really is amazing that as you go more and more deeper into the district, the hippy culture exponentially increases in magnitude, to the point, like in Chinatown, I was the odd one out when I was far in.

Regardless, I continued onto Golden Gate Park which is what wowed me the most. While unfortunately a lot of the exhibits are closed on Mondays for maintenance, I did see alot (though not as much as I would like to, thus possibly warranting another trip), all of which was GORGEOUS. I repeat, gorgeous. From the plethora of flaura and fauna they have (I didn't even go that deep into the Botanical Gardens), to the public sports and other facilities, to hippie hill, to everything else Golden Gate Park is a large (bigger than Central Park in NYC) beautiful recreation area which I recommend anyone allocate at least a day to in its own right to fully enjoy.

I grabbed a quick bite (just fast food, nothing fancy, was way too tired from all the walking) and took the Caltrain back to San Jose where Dave picked me up. Later we went to El-Buro, a mexican restaurant, where I had the Enchelauta Sausha, which was great (and large, took some back with me).

Based on my first day, I very much like San Fran but would not like to live there. While like in NYC, its a walking city, meaning you stay fit, it is also crowded and I like my space :-). Furthermore there are ALOT of homeless (many of them hippies), and while the misfortunes of others is a tragedy, I would not like to have some of those folks in my neighborhood. The city is great and much fun to visit, so I very much recommend visiting it to anyone.

Tomorrow, will head back to the city, take a cable car to Fisherman's wharf (where I won't spend alot of time since I will most likely visit again later in the week), rent a bike, and see / bike the Golden Gate Bridge and the Golden Gate Recreation Area beyond.

Finally, I copied the photos from my camera to my computer, but probably won't select which ones are the best and upload them tonight. Will try tomorrow or whenever the next time I get a chance. Also I didn't find any internets the californee way yet ;-)