Sunday, April 29, 2012

SF - Saturday city walk

I was strongly encouraged on Friday night that a real SF thing to do was to visit Dolores Park on a sunny Saturday. I was also told that this was hipster central and that I would be offered drugs there more times in an hour than I had in my entire life.  So I decided to start my day there and either hang out or make my way to other parts of the city, possibly Golden Gate Park.

As it turned out, there were hipsters, but it wasn't all that extreme.  It seemed more like urban people hanging out at a park because the weather was nice.  Nobody offered me drugs, but a naive-seeming couple of young hippies did offer me a bottle of Campucho or something, which is a fermeted drink, supposedly full of healthy pro-biotics that actually turned out to be quite delicious, like a fizzy apple cider vinegar.  So I didn't stick around the park long, but made my way towards Golden Gate park, walking through a very pretty residential area that I believe was above the Castro district.  After the park, I cut back through an older residential district that reminded me of a Raymond Chandler novel. Still very pretty, but fewer trees and lots of sun-baked concrete.  Many Chinese people seemed to be living here, perhaps several generations in.  Then I cut down to the Haight-Ashbury and walked along Haight back to the BART downtown.  Lots to look at in San Francisco.  Below are the pictures, with comments from time to time.

Another trike!
The Mission Dolores, after which this district is named.

I've learned in SF a new design principle, the relationship between trees and the buildings next to them.


Not excessively hipsterish.

Lots of streets in SF end in stairs.

Looking back from the stairs.

How nice a view do these people have!

And check out their little rooftop terrace.  Jealous!
See what I mean about buildings and trees complementing each other!


Not sure what this mountain top is named, but I will walk to it one of these days.


Getting into some classic SF Victorian houses.


Stately somebody's manor.


This is the second one of these I've seen.  Disturbing.

Go Vegan.

What you are picking right now.

de Young museum, looks kind of Star Trek like.
Food trucks in Golden Gate Park. No more chowder! :(

This was the Chandler-esque neighbourhood.

Hope you enjoyed my walk as much as I did!


7 comments:

meezly said...

You were busy today! Nice pics, babe.

Christine Mitchell said...

Dang, Olman, nice outing you had!

(FYI, the never-sleeps proofreader in me was confused by "I've learned in SF a new design principle, the relationship between buildings and the buildings next to them." I sorted it out when I got down to the photo of building + tree.)

OlmanFeelyus said...

Whoops! I couldn't decide whether to say "the relationships between trees and the buildings next to them" or "the relationships between buildings and the trees next to them" and found the confusing middle ground. Thanks for the proofreading!

Christine Mitchell said...

What about "tree-on-building action"?

OlmanFeelyus said...

This is an all-ages blog, CM.

Buzby said...

Safe Surrender sites are wild, is baby abandonment that frequent in CA that they need special sites for it?

From the California social services web site:

The Safely Surrendered Baby Law responds to the increasing number of newborn infant deaths due to abandonment in unsafe locations. First created in January 2001, the Safely Surrendered Baby Law was signed permanently into state law in January 2006. The law’s intent is to save lives of newborn infants at risk of abandonment by encouraging parents or persons with lawful custody to safely surrender the infant within 72 hours of birth, with no questions asked

OlmanFeelyus said...

These are the places that older couples who want babies should hang around instead of going to China.