Some time ago we received an email from one of our readers. We exchanged a few emails and we found out that he lives in San Francisco. And as we were planning to head there pretty soon we used our recently gained assertiveness and we asked him if he had a backyard, a parking spot on a street or at least an idea where we could park for a few nights. He didn’t have any place to offer but he promised he would ask around. And that’s how we set up our base camp for San Francisco at a parking lot of Polish church in San Jose (once again we’d like to thank Piotrek and Ania for idea and for the support and father Andrzej for hospitality).
Polish church in San Jose is in Mexican neighborhood. But unlike Polish southside in Chicago, where Mexican wave flooded over old Polish streets, in San Jose it was all about the price of land. It was simply the cheapest there. We didn’t mind. Sometimes it would get loud in the evening, we would hear roosters in the morning, there were carts with tacos for a dollar on the parking lots around. We heard it gets unpleasant sometimes but we enjoyed staying there. Soon it’ll become a religious center, as just next door an Hindu cultural center is being built. It’ll get crowded and it’ll become a real multi-culti melting pot.
At the parking lot of Polish church we spent a whole week, although San Francisco has so much to offer that even a month would not be enough. Below we will write about what we managed to see in such a short time.
Golden Gate Bridge - a symbol of San Francisco. Up close it’s really Orange Vermilion Gate Bridge. Very often it’s hidden in fog but we got to see it in a beautiful sunshine. We saw it from northern side - there is a large parking lot and a view point. But that’s not the best place to look at the bridge from. If you look around while standing on the bridge you’ll see a better view point.
We took a stroll on the bridge but we didn’t walk the whole thing (more or less 2 miles each way), we walked just passed the first pylon from the north. It was loud, it was windy, there were lots of bikers, including the local ones not caring too much for pedestrians. Maciek liked it, maybe it reminded him of the bridge he used to walk on while going to preschool back in Warsaw. It’s worth a walk, at least to touch the bridge and see at Frisco skyline. And, as we mentioned before, to see a great view point.
To get there you have to go a bit further by 101, take the first exit, go under the highway on “1”(yes, this one) and then go up. There are a few view points. You can skip the first one, but the view at the bridge and the skyline from the further ones, especially two last ones is amazing. There is also an unfinished fort with place prepared for anti-aicraft and artillery guns for defense system of San Francisco. It’s unfinished because pace of arms race was so crazy that before the system was finished it was obvious that it was outdated and useless. Nothing new, in Pensacola there were annotations by a few planes that at the time they were ready for mass production better versions were almost completed or new technologies were introduced that made them look silly...
Practical note: going north is for free, going back you have to pay toll. Since going around is a long drive probably you will pay anyway.
Chinatown. The biggest surprise about Chinatown for us was the fact that it’s populated by…Chinese. Who would expect… We thought there would be just tourists taking pictures, not a living ethnic neighborhood with signs in Chinese only, laundry hanging out the windows, real Chinese cuisine.
We got all you can eat dim sum for less than 6 USD per person. It wasn’t easy to understand each other, the food was so-so, but with this price we won’t complain. Unfortunately for dessert we got a parking ticket. We were looking for parking space for half an hour. Once we found it and we put two quarters into the meter we found out the meter was broken. We reported it and we were informed that we can stay there although we can expect getting a ticket, and then we can appeal. That’s what we did.. If the appeal doesn’t work it’ll be the most expensive dim sum ever...
We spent half a day in Golden Gate Park. We read on internet that it’s the biggest city park in the world, and that there is the only building in the world with a living roof. We know at least two in Warsaw… Biggest or not, we won’t get into high-school discussions. For sure it’s big. There’s a free parking by the street in entire park, but before 6 pm in more popular parts of the park there is 2-hour limit, in less popular - 4-hour.
For 7 USD (per adult) we went to Japanese Tea Garden. It was nice and pretty, lots of Japanese tourists (probably the same story as with Americans in McDonald’s everywhere in the world, but just to make things clear we were quite happy when we found Lech Walesa street and we stopped to take some pictures, so no judging here). There were also DeYoung Museum, with facade reminding a bit the walls of Wilson Square metro station in Warsaw, and California Academy of Sciences. We skipped the first one mostly cause we didn’’t feel like indoors activities (even though they had Girl with a Pearl Earing visiting, unfortunately original one, not Scarlett Johansson), the second one we skipped because of the price. Instead we spent a lot of time at the playground, Maciek loved it. There is a great playground in the park and at least a short stop is a must when being there with kids.
We left the car in the park and we went to see the city. First we walked Haight Ashbury, hippie neighborhood. Leaving the park in this direction can be a cultural shock. Just a few yards from the playground and the park turns into home of homeless. It looks like that for a few blocks into the city. You have to look under your feet not to step for example on a guy laying across the pavement and laughing at the sun. Maciek seemed to like the approach. There are lots of vintage shops, coffee places, pubs and shops with medical marijuana – the smoke is filling the air like Harvey Milk’s ghost.
From there we walked to Japantown. It’s smaller than Chinatown (reflecting the reality) but just as fascinating. We had a great dinner in Japanese restaurant, where Japanese tourists had a problem communicating with Japanese-looking but not Japanese-speaking waiter. They did get some generational connection after all: guests asked about the song that was just playing, the waiter said he had no idea (it was this Aerosmith’s song from Armagedon).
Afterwards we headed to Japanese shopping mall. There was a restaurant there where Keanu Reeves himself ate once, which was celebrated in a little altar in front of it. Well, maybe next time. There were also stores with super-designer gadgets next to stores with traditional souvenirs, chopstics, tea sets and swords. The picture was completed by Hello Kitty store.
We drove by winding Lombard Street, although we had to wait in a line first. It seems to be a really popular spot. Interesting experience. It’s good to first burn your brakes in Death Valley and remember it entering Lombard Street just to make your adrenaline level higher.
 |
| Substitute photo, ones from Lombard street weren't so nice |
It was a few busy days and there was more to come. To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment