San Francisco Part One

It's the night before we're scheduled to leave for LA, and I realized I should somehow cram everything San Francisco-related into this post.

Anyhow, for some reason we didn't go to bed till 4am the first night, so I only crawled out of bed at 12.30pm. It effectively meant that half the day was gone, which sucked. We decided to head for the "cool" neighborhoods like The Haight, Castro, and The Mission. I found out Cameron lived in The Haight, so it was our natural choice for the first stop.

There, Cameron brought us to what she called The Best Record Store In The World - Amoeba Records. It was a truly amazing place; a bowling alley converted into a record store, with aisles upon aisles of CDs, LPs and DVDs as far as the eye could see.



Weisheng went mad at the used jazz section, and raved about the huge selection of trance artists. I found all three volumes of The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs (I know they're not that rare in the US, but they're impossible to find in Singapore). Even Jingli got into the mood and grabbed a whole bunch of DVDs.



When we got out of Amoeba, the sky, which had been cloudy and grey the whole day, was beginning to get nice and bright. We debated whether or not to go to the Golden Gate Bridge, but decided against it because there might be fog. We were to dearly regret that decision in the coming days.

The rest of The Haight was pretty cool, with stores selling all kinds of trinkets, gifts, vintage clothing and shit like that. By the time we were done with the area it was already six-ish, and we decided to just do Castro then head home.

Castro is a street that is very gay-centric. The sidewalks are lined with stores selling gay videos, gay erotic art, sex toys, adult humor gifts, and so on. Of course, you'll find the odd dentist or home decor store, but by and large they were very very gay. Which meant they were a whole lot of fun, because gay also means happy.

We dropped by Fisherman's Wharf and it was mostly closed. Actually it was a good thing because the place is incredibly tourist-y and rather off-putting, in a way. We did manage to get a good deal at a seafood stall, paying only US$22 for a dinner for three. The owner even gave us extra food and free clam strips (which actually weren't good at all). But hey, it was free.





There are amazing chocolate stores too, selling Ghiradelli's chocolates. Their ridiculously large toffee apples are tempting as hell, too.



I'm rather proud of this next picture, because I had to use a half-second shutter speed and still managed to keep it relatively steady. Go me.



Somehow we also managed to drop by the Bay Bridge, which connects San Francisco to Oakland. It's lit up at night and rather pretty.



At the Bay Bridge is also a rather silly looking sculpture of a huge bow and arrow. I'm sure it's meant to symbolize something good but for the life of me I can't imagine what. It's in the background of this picture.



It's now 2am, and I should be getting some sleep, since we have to get up at 8am tomorrow to drive to LA. I guess I'll have to continue there.