[travel] The Last Adventure: San Francisco

[mattbell]

I wanted to visit my own hometown as a tourist, seeing it with fresh eyes before I get used to being there again.

I felt the urge to do all the touristy stuff even though I usually aimed toward more offbeat attractions in other cities.  However, if I'm going to be a tourist, I need the proper uniform (made possible by $4.60 of purchases in Chinatown).  Here we go:





First stop was City Hall.  I got a tour of the soaring Art Nouveau building, and learned a lot of potentially embellished things from a guide hoping to enthrall the teens in the audience while keeping the older folks fed with a steady diet of history.  Apparently we have earthquakes all the time.  There's a tremor you can feel around once a month.  No wonder they think we're about to slide into the sea. 

There are also apparently always protesters in front of city hall, except when there are not.  The guide said "In San Francisco you can never grow old because you always have to keep defending your views." 




The guide spent a lot of time talking about Harvey Milk and Jonestown as well as the 1906 earthquake.  Apparently he gets lots of questions about Harvey Milk, and I was impressed that the conservative-looking Southern family on the tour had seen it.



The guide portrayed San Francisco as being a very culturally diverse city, with wildly differing cultural and political views coexisting, clashing, and combining to create interesting results.  He's right.  It's all out in the open.  This place reminds me a lot of Amsterdam, Berlin, and Toronto. 

On the rest of the walking tour, we ran across a wide range of public art.  I would say that San Francisco has more public art, especially murals, than just about any other place I've seen.  It's a grungy city in parts, but it's beautiful and well cared for. 

 
 
 


This art project, which I'm tempted to call "tree enhancement", adds parasite-like nests of branches to the trees:



San Francisco has one of the biggest Chinatowns in the world (except China), and that's just the main one.  There's a second one out on the western end of the city.  I bought some various types of ginseng.  It works well as an alternative to caffiene.  I did not buy any of the numerous varieties of dried sea cucumber. 

 

I'm sure this one is a huge hit with 5-year old kids on holiday.  "Mom, mom, can we watch a movie at the big red castle??"



I'm impressed how sex-positive and open this city is.  Where else would my have my afternoon interrupted by thoughts about how you tastefully depict anthropomorphic penises of different races so as to convey their race without getting people upset at the stereotypes?



Yeah, I think I like this place.  Maybe I should live here.

Comments

[crotchgoblin.livejournal.com]

I love that you did this.

[miriam-littlebones.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

Your city is beautiful;) Not at all like the inside of a hotel room.You already look different, post-travel. The grungy backpacker look is vanishing rapidly. Just after I got back from my trip and entered the wonderland of my old-life wardrobe (stored at my mum's house), I promtly changed into something urban and trendy...but every time I looked at the little discarded bundle of backpacker clothes I felt sad and treacherous. Like I'd abandoned a loyal friend.