San Francisco. Home to hippies, amazing food, the Golden Gate bridge and for a week, Hamish and Ruth.
We arrived in the afternoon, and before checking into the hotel, we walked along the waterfront and out onto a pier to look at the two bridges (Golden Gate bridge, above, and the Bay Bridge). Once settled in, we explored Chinatown, which was just a block from our hotel.
The following day, we got a little lost going up and down in the hills trying to reach the top of Coit Tower but we finally made it and enjoyed the views over the city! After that, we had to go back to the waterfront and do some more exploring - finding the left-hand store was just a bonus for Hamish! (That does say "Lefties rule" on the window)
While walking home we were treated to one of the funniest sights we've seen so far - a tour on Segways! 15 tourists in safety vests, touring San Fran on stand-up scooters. It turns out that it is impossible to look cool while riding one of those...
After all that walking, we needed to get some dinner, and a little research found us the perfect place, just around the corner. E & O Trading Company had a very Monsoon Poon feel, and the food was fantastic - especially the Indonesian corn fritters that they are known for. We enjoyed the food so much that we went back the next night (and had the same waiter...oh the shame).
San Francisco was gearing up for the Christmas break, and although we did have a little look around the shops, it was too filled with frenzied shoppers to be enjoyable! So we got a little culture instead, and went to the SF Museum of Modern Art.
The MOMA was having a neat exhibition of the latest purchases made by the new director - so instead of being organised by theme or time or artist, it was a few rooms of their rather random collection. There was a heavy focus on architecture and print images, although the iPod Touch was also on display!
After enjoying Katherina Fritsh's work in Seattle, it was neat to see another one of her sculptures here. Kind mit Pudeln (Child with Poodles) is 224 poodle sculptures encircling the figure of a baby.
In complete contrast to spending the day looking at art, we also visited the Jelly Belly jellybean factory, in Fairfield. A free tour + samples + cheap jellybeans = a day of fun! As the only people there without children, we did stand out a little, but who cares when you get to wear hats like these? (Sorry that Hamish's photo is out of focus - I was shaking with excitement!)
Our Christmas day was very low key, but we walked across the Golden Gate bridge and had planned on visiting the Jewish Contemporary Museum (open on Christmas day). It was too busy, so we gave up and had champagne and ate our feast from Trader Joe's, the best supermarket in California. It was sunny, but windy, and the walk across the bridge was a little noisy, but we got to feel a little better about ourselves for drinking our champagne later! All in all, a very pleasant day!
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