Day 3--Farewell to San Francisco

Sunday morning dawned sunny but still chilly.  Allie and I were going to be striking out on our own, without friend or guide, to find a church to go to.  We had looked up the nearest church service, and were glad to find out it was at 9 a.m.  Allie and I prefer morning church anyway, and this was especially convenient because it would allow us to get to church and still have the rest of the day to explore more of San Francisco before catching our train, the "Coast Starlight," that evening.

On the steps of Gee's house. Don't be fooled, we never went in the front door.  Their place was in the door to the right and down the basement hallway.

I was especially nervous for this outing, because I was playing the role of bus expert and guide.  Allie hasn't ridden public transit much, so I was the veteran.  While it's true that I've ridden a ton of public transit in cities from New York to Tokyo, every city is different and there are always unknown variables and stupid mistakes when you're on in an unfamiliar city with no knowledge of the landmarks, bus routes, etc.  Not only that, but I wanted Allie to have a good, stress-free experience with public transit.  She'd already watched us spend money on a taxi ride (her first) because the bus wasn't fast enough the afternoon before and she'd spent the evening shivering in the cold for 40 minutes waiting for a bus that had broken down.  This was my chance to redeem public transit a little in her eyes.  But it meant I had to be on my toes.  I used all the tricks I'd ever learned to minimize stupid mistakes that I'm usually too lazy to use.  I not only looked up the bus we would take, but also looked at shape of the route, the major streets it would cross, any landmarks that I might be able to see when we got close, and any that would let me know if we'd gone too far.  I asked for directions to double check that we were waiting at the right bus stop, and we arrived early, but not ridiculously so to catch our bus.  On the bus I wasn't very good company because I was constantly swiveling my head to check street signs and the bus marquee.  But it all paid off, and we got off at the exact right stop and walked straight to the church building, arriving half an hour early.  This meant that we had time to wander around a few blocks taking pictures of the houses.

The houses in San Francisco have been pictured in films, postcards, and TV shows, and I almost instantly fell in love with them.  If townhouses in Utah looked that unique, instead of being the uninteresting clones that they are, I'd be much more likely to take that real estate agent on the train's advice and buy one.

Gee and Kat picked us up from church and we headed out to a late brunch.  One of Gee's favorite things to take people to when they visit him is Dim Sum, which was ok by me.  I'd been out to Dim Sum with Gee in the past and knew what a treat I was in for.  Allie was a bit more apprehensive.  She's already been subjected to nearly three meals a day of expensive, deluxe Asian food, and she was getting a little leery of trying something new...again.  But I think she enjoyed herself.  Her crazy new food experience for the day was the prawns.  This meant she had to eat a whole, huge shrimp, legs, eyes, brain and all.  They're tricky little guys, and even I approach them with caution.  If you don't chew thoroughly, the little spiny legs get stuck and pricky in your throat, which is anything from appetizing.  But she dived in with good will and only a slightly nervous face.  It helped when we gave up trying to manipulate the odd shaped arthropods with our chopsticks and used our hands instead.

After Dim Sum, we headed to San Francisco's Japantown.  Their cherry-blossom festival was in full swing, and although it was only a few blocks long, it was still a lot of fun.  There was a pagoda, sort of, lots of street vendors, a mall full of Japanese shops, and the group was forced to hear tons of "When I was in Japan" memories from me.  A brand new Daiso had just opened up, and I wandered down every isle of that just to remind myself that, yes, Japanese dollar stores really are a million times better than ours.  I miss the stores.  While I was there I stocked up on a few of my favorite things like haichu, panda cookies, calpis, cc lemon, etc.  I did later find some cider drops, but I'd already exceeded my candy budget by then.  I know panda cookies and haichu aren't hard to find here, but they were much cheaper in the Japantown stores than in the international food stores here.  I rarely get to see calpis in the US, and I've never found cc lemon before.  So I was overjoyed, although Allie thought I was a bit silly as I sat there taking alternate sips of calpis and cc lemon because I couldn't decide which one to open first.

After leaving Japantown behind, Kat headed back to work again, and Gee, Allie, and I went to one of the next big San Francisco experiences:  Haight Street.  It was by far, the most "hippie" place I've ever been.  Heck, for the first time in my life, someone actually offered me drugs (I said no, Mom and Dad. I said no.) No one in high school or college ever even bothered to offer nerdy me any, not that that was a problem or anything, mind you. This marked an interesting first.  

I can't count how many smoke shops we wandered into and how many vintage clothing shops we browsed.  No ordinary thrift stores here, no, these were meticulously arranged by category and decade and had nothing from after the 80s.

I tried on some really crazy shoes at one of the thrift stores.

At one store, Gee and I were feeling all the old fur coats, and seeing if we could guess what kind of fur they were, when one coat stumped us.  It was too coarse to be mink or rabbit, and the wrong color for squirrel or bear. So we checked the tag.  Wolf.  Wolf!? I froze, coat in hand.  For some reason a wolf-skin coat bothered me much more than a squirrel, rabbit, or mink one.  It was huge, it was heavy, and it was very warm.  I couldn't believe it.  When was the last time anyone made a wolf-skin coat?  I quickly slipped it on and had Gee snap a picture so that we could send it to my sister, the one who works in Yellowstone and gets to hang out with wolf packs.  I'm still not sure if she's going disown me or not for this picture.

Allie got sick of browsing long before Gee and I did.  Allie likes to shop when she's going to spend money, but not when she isn't.  I'm the other way around.  I'll browse forever with no intention of buying, just talking and commenting, but as soon as I have to shop for something in particular, I very quickly get frustrated.  But eventually even Gee and I got tired of looking through the endless thrift stores and smoke shops and organic clothing stores.  From Haight Street we walked through Golden Gate Park back to the apartment.  Golden Gate Park IS BIG, about 1017 acres, 175 acres larger than Central Park (www.golden-gate-park.com). It's got a museum, the Conservatory of Flowers, the Academy of Sciences, two main lakes and several smaller ones.  It's big, and it's pretty.  I wish we'd had more time to explore, but by that time the sun was setting, it was getting cold, and we were getting hungry.  Although Allie tried to suggest something simple, cheap, and non-Asian for dinner (a sandwich shop or something), but the neighborhood where Gee and Kat live is affectionately known as "Little China," and isn't well populated with sandwich shops.  So we rounded off our edible tour of Asia with Thai food.  During our little more than 48-hour stay in SF we managed to eat Japanese, Indian, Chinese, and Thai food.  After dinner Gee and I walked to a crepe shop for some dessert. (Kat and Allie wussed out after the large dinner.  Gee and I are more the bottomless pit type.)  After a last chilly walk through San Francisco's streets, and a few more minutes hanging out at their place, it was time to go.  It shouldn't surprise anyone by now that Gee had to do some fancy driving to get us to the station in Emeryville at our target time (see his timing on the bridge, the bus, and the taxi on Day Two), but he got us there in plenty of time in the end.  A fantastic host to the last, he even hung out with us at the station until it was time to board our train, despite the fact it'd been a long day and it was already 10 p.m. (Another advantage of train travel is that they only recommend you show up half an hour before your train leaves.  Take that, planes!)

Golden Gate Park

As Allie and I settled into our seats on the Coast Starlight for our 17-hour journey to Portland, we felt like old hands at travel by train.  The couple behind us were traveling for the first time by Amtrak, and were asking many of the same questions we had just a few days before.  Allie and I exchanged knowing smiles, put our headphones on, leaned out seats back, adjusted the foot bar, adjusted the food pad, put our feet on the tray tables (common practice), curled up in our blankets (I had bought a $15 Amtrak "suvenier" blanket because I hadn't brought my own, and they make a big difference in how well you sleep on the train), adjusted our little pillows, and drifted off to sleep.

Of course I tried it on.  Of course it looked nothing like real dreads, especially not the short ones I'll have this summer, but of course it made me super excited anyway.  I'm peggin D-Day (yeah, I did.  Dread Day) at about June 3.

Golden Gate Park again.  It was really, really gorgeous.