Miles Walked: 13.5 miles
Dan's bike seat had taken quite a toll on my bum from the day before and I decided to walk.
Coit Tower was my first stop and I didn’t actually go to the top of the tower because it cost money. Inside Coit there are some really nice murals along all the inside walls and when I went back outside, I could hear Seals from the bay hundreds of yards away. The view from the base of the tower was quite nice.
The walk down the hill to Lombard Street was really steep. It couldn’t have been 45 degrees because that seems like it would be against road and building codes, but it was quite near that. I did see a long dumpster half way down the hill and I was amazed that it wasn’t at least sliding or tumbling.
After walking for a bit, I saw the most crooked street in the world. The area right before it is the Italian district and they mark their space with hand size paintings of the Italian flag on every light pole. Reminded me of Stefano and Francesco and all of my Italian friends.
I kept walking and after another 2 miles, I came across the Exploratorium and the Palace of Fine Arts. It was so nice! It felt like Europe because of the huge columns and the building is gigantic. There was a beautiful blue-green lagoon that ran along the outside of the area. I want one.
For lunch, I met Ceara back in the Italian district and ate at an Italian sub place that reminded me of Cool Corners in Atlanta. Up until this point, I had a really good impression of SF. The people were really nice and said hi to me, there was so much to see and it was really diverse so I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of it. But then I was somewhat disappointed when I went to the Union Square district. I mainly went there to see if I could get a tour of the old SF Mint. Getting there was awful. It was just full of tourist crap and tons of people and there were so many homeless people. When I got to the mint, I just wanted to get out of the area and I kept walking. However, every turn I made, was a wrong one and drunken people came up and talked to me (it was like 3 pm on Thursday). It just made me sad to see people living like this.
Eventually I got back on the path I wanted to be on; my destination was the Japan Center. I wanted to see how it compared to Chinatown. On the way there, I passed St. Mary’s Cathedral. It is huge and very different from any church I have ever seen – very modern. I think that is why I liked it so much. When I went inside, they were practicing and I got to hear the organ and trumpets. From the roof, there hung a huge mobile (baldachino) that looked like a winding wind chime. It was lit by sunlight and I really liked the dark-light contrast. I was surprised when I passed a sign that said it costs them $3200 a day to maintain the place. I haven't found any photos that show how huge it really is from the outside, but here are some good pictures from the inside.
Japantown was much smaller than Chinatown and it didn’t seem like there was much there. All I really saw was a movie theatre and mall area full of only Japanese shops and the street signs had Japanese subtitles. So I went into a bamboo shop and an origami shop but that’s about it. I did like the water fountains there a lot though. But I ended up staying only about an hour and then met up with Ceara and we took the CalTrain back to Dan’s.
[Coit Tower and Lombard Street pictures taken from pdphoto.org]
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