California Adventure, Part 2
After the rheology done, I took the bus (run by AmTrak) from Monterey to San Jose, and then the train (not run by AmTrak) from San Jose to San Francisco. After checking into the hotel, I walked around a little bit on the Embarcadero, saw the fabulous Pier 39 for five minutes, and then went to bed.
The walking around was designed to put me at SFMOMA when it opened at 10:00, and it worked as planned. I didn't have time for the special Frida Kahlo exhibit, but I did enjoy the two other special exhibits that I saw. I had never heard of fashion model-turned-fashion-photographer-turned-war-photojournalist Lee Miller before, but I definitely enjoyed the large collection of photos of and by her. There was a nice one of her taking a bath in Hitler's bathtub when she was part of the first group of reporters into the captured Hilter's villa in Munich. The other exhibit was on contemporary Chinese art and was pretty interesting.
Woo-hoo, cable cars.
I do have to admit they won me over. There should be more of them to make them less touristy. The woodwork, ironwork, and glass detailing of the cars make them so much more interesting than a modern bus. I didn't find any Rice-A-Roni, though.
Despite the touristy nature, the cable car was in fact the most direct public transportation option (though certainly not the quickest when you factor in the line) to take me from Market St near SFMOMA across town to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. There are way too many parts to the GGNRA to take in in just one afternoon, and so I concentrated on the most obvious part, the Golden Gate Bridge.
Since I was there on 08/08/08, the date of the start of the Olympics, there were Tibetan freedom protestors on the south side of the bridge. I think I heard that they had walked across the bridge earlier in the day. I walked across the bridge and took way too many photos. Here's a sampling.
The south side of the bridge is at the Presidio, but it is closely surrounded by the city. The Marin Headlands on the norther side, however, are pretty nice and undeveloped.
After hiking around to get good vantage points on the bridge with the city in the background, I hiked some more down to the water for some more shots.
I think in all I walked about ten or twelve miles that day. Thus, I just sat around on Friday night and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Saturday morning, I got a little more walking in, visiting Lombard St and Telegraph Hill
Then it was to the BART under the bay to the fabulous Oakland and its airport. I can't really say I saw any obvious "there" from the windows of the train once it became elevated, but I must say there is something impressive about the size of the port.
| Friday morning, I walked around a little more and checked out Chinatown before it really opened (not particularly exciting at 7:45 AM). I also saw that the base of the TransAmerica Pyramid is pretty cool. (No good pictures, though.) The top was often shrouded in fog in the morning, as is most of San Francisco, it seems. Snopes.com tells me that Mark Twain did not actually say "The coldest winter of my life was the summer I spent in San Francisco." This makes it no less true. |  |
The walking around was designed to put me at SFMOMA when it opened at 10:00, and it worked as planned. I didn't have time for the special Frida Kahlo exhibit, but I did enjoy the two other special exhibits that I saw. I had never heard of fashion model-turned-fashion-photographer-turned-war-photojournalist Lee Miller before, but I definitely enjoyed the large collection of photos of and by her. There was a nice one of her taking a bath in Hitler's bathtub when she was part of the first group of reporters into the captured Hilter's villa in Munich. The other exhibit was on contemporary Chinese art and was pretty interesting.
Woo-hoo, cable cars.
I do have to admit they won me over. There should be more of them to make them less touristy. The woodwork, ironwork, and glass detailing of the cars make them so much more interesting than a modern bus. I didn't find any Rice-A-Roni, though.
Despite the touristy nature, the cable car was in fact the most direct public transportation option (though certainly not the quickest when you factor in the line) to take me from Market St near SFMOMA across town to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. There are way too many parts to the GGNRA to take in in just one afternoon, and so I concentrated on the most obvious part, the Golden Gate Bridge.
Since I was there on 08/08/08, the date of the start of the Olympics, there were Tibetan freedom protestors on the south side of the bridge. I think I heard that they had walked across the bridge earlier in the day. I walked across the bridge and took way too many photos. Here's a sampling.
The south side of the bridge is at the Presidio, but it is closely surrounded by the city. The Marin Headlands on the norther side, however, are pretty nice and undeveloped.
After hiking around to get good vantage points on the bridge with the city in the background, I hiked some more down to the water for some more shots.
I think in all I walked about ten or twelve miles that day. Thus, I just sat around on Friday night and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Saturday morning, I got a little more walking in, visiting Lombard St and Telegraph Hill
Then it was to the BART under the bay to the fabulous Oakland and its airport. I can't really say I saw any obvious "there" from the windows of the train once it became elevated, but I must say there is something impressive about the size of the port.
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