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Destination 7: The Bay Area 2006-03-02 02/24/06 Half Moon Bay: Left Menlo Park and Palo Alto today for San Jose. On our way back, we stopped by Half Moon Bay for the sunset. It was really nice to see the ocean again. I have missed it. Somewhat disappointingly, the ocean in the Bay Area does not actually smell like the ocean at all. Nevertheless, all is good as we caught a nice orangie sunset and I got to jump around in the ocean waves.Night San Francisco: My first visit to San Francisco. We went to the Mission district to grab dinner and then drove around town. My host was super patient and kind and took me to all the places that I wanted to see and all the places that I didn't know I wanted to see. I have been so blessed with generous and hospitable hosts for so many of my trips. Cheeful sigh. :) We tried to take night pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of Fine Arts. I have decided that I do not like night pictures because they either come out blurry, or too dark, or even if the exposure is right and it is bright and not blurry, the long exposure gives the photo an unreal and somewhat headache inducing appearance. 02/25/06 Haight: What a name for a supposedly upbeat and youthful street. Walked around the stores and was approached multiple times by local people asking me to take their pictures for them. Reason? They say they are going to be famous so I had better get a picture. Alamo Square: Here I had my Full House moment. All those hours spent watching Full House back in the days came back to me. Memories. We saw the painted Victorian houses. What can I say other than that they look exactly as they do on Full House! Presidio: A national park inside a city? Guess so. This park is a potpourri of forests, beaches, cemetaries, and so on. Got a pretty good look here at the Golden Gate Bridge. Also got to walk on the beaches again. :) That always makes my day. Driving in SF: is like a rollercoaster ride. :) Lots of ups and downs and crazy curvy streets like Lombard Street. :) Lots of fun! Ferry Building: This was a SF version of St. Lawrence Market. Pistachio gelato is good. Unless some of the pistachios in your gelatto are rotten. But oh well! :) I'm not sure why I'm putting so many smiley faces in this SF trip blog entry. I must have had fun and made some good memories! :) Berkeley: We drove over to the Berkeley area to have dinner at this Southern BBQ place. I must say that I had so much barbequed ribs that I died a little death. 02/26/06 Yosemite: It is difficult to describe this trip in words. So feel free to check out some of my pictures on Flickr. Oh, I saw a wild kayote. 02/27/06 The Train: Early morning, I took the Caltrain from San Jose to San Francisco. I enjoyed this train ride, watching the world passing me by. I like the sense of movement that you can only get by being in a train. It helps me process life. Sometimes I used to think that whenever I had time I should buy a return train ticket and just go for a train ride. Being on this train ride also made another fact shout out at me: I enjoy travelling alone. Not to say that I do not enjoy travelling with others. That is a different type of enjoyment. But I definitely am more observant, have more meaningful and productive thought processes, and get more soul searching done when travelling alone. When I'm on the train, on my own, sometimes I feel like I'm an invisible stranger, visitor to the world, here to observe. And that feels nice. :) The Cable Car: I rode all three lines of the Cable Cars up and down the crazy hilly streets of San Francisco just for fun. The Cable Car operators were all so jolly and friendly. It seems like they live such a fun and laid back life, just chilling with tourists all day and riding up and down the streets of San Fran. The Pier: Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39 were interesting touristy places to visit. Very colorfully painted little buildings and a *gazillion* live sealions chilling on the docks. I'm not sure what the purpose of those sealions are. They seemed all bored and crowded and I felt sorry for them. The Rain: Just like my trip to NYC, it rained all day for my day-trip to San Fran. Well, I suppose there is something special about seeing places like San Fran in the rain, because apparently, here, it rarely rains. Good thing this is near the end of my trip because I'm getting tired of blogging and am getting antsy to go eat dinner. 02/28/06 The Plane: Flying over from ORD to YYZ, I sat in 1D, first class, with my seat so reclined that I was practically lying down. I covered the edges of my window to prevent the light from hitting it and looked out at the countless stars in the sky. Some of them were even at eye level or lower. It was such a magnificient view that I held this position for 1.5 hours. Flying home, I camped in the sky, surrounded by the stars.
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