2 posts tagged “small adventure”

This post was supposed to be about going to see the New Pickle Circus, but due to a sudden onset of illiteracy, I thought that my ticket said 4pm instead of 2pm.  [slow clap]

Since I was all set to go someplace, I decided to go forth and Have A Small Adventure, instead.  In spite of the ominous weather, I headed out to Chinatown.  I've been before, years ago, and rode the bus through a few times in the past weeks, but Lonely Planet assures me it is a neighborhood best tackled on foot.

I came in through the dragon gate on Grant (I think it's on Grant) and only remembered that my function here was to take pictures.  So this is a picture looking back down the street toward the gate:

What gate? you ask.  It turns out that I picked bad weather and a bad time of day (close to sunset, by now) to photograph cities, since everything becomes gray and dark very quickly.  If you squint, you can see the gate down at the bottom of the street.

The Chinese New Year is some time soon, apparently, because there are red lanterns hung over the street.  The lampposts are also pretty cute in this stretch of road: they're green and have dragons on them.  Why I neglected to take a picture of them, I don't know.

I'm sure this is all very pretty when it's not DARK OUTSIDE, but that was something I didn't consider when I headed out.  All of the shops around here were either putting out hunger-producing smells or were filled with touristy junk.

Then I made a wrong turn and magically ended up in the financial district, next to this monstrosity:

I'm sorry, but this is an ugly building.  (Although I like to imagine that, way at the top, there's some kind of John-Malkovich-style floor where everyone has to lean slightly to one side in order to accommodate the point in the ceiling.)

I wonder what that thing is sticking out of the side.

And that pathetic display, readers, is all of my photographs.  I made my way
back to Chinatown proper, but it was beginning to sprinkle and the sun was going down, so I marched back to the bus stop and headed home.  I'll have to go back on, say, a sunny Saturday morning to capture the hustle and the bustle and the getting elbowed off the sidewalk.

In the mean time, I am a bundle of nerves as I wait to hear back from two companies who might (maybe? please?) want to employ me.  They both said I'd hear from them early this week, which I hope means "first thing Monday morning."  The waiting is killing me.  Stay close: I may have to go have another small adventure today to keep myself from checking my phone every sixteen seconds.

Yesterday afternoon I finally got bored with using my days off to hang around the house and sleep (I never thought that would get old).  So I decided to Have A Small Adventure and take the bus north along the coast to Cliff House.  This, it turns out, is that odd-looking white building I can see looking north from the beach near my house.

So the view from my beach looks toward Cliff House and Point Lobos, not, as I originally surmised, the Presidio (although I think you can see that, too).  This is the view of the Presidio: (I tried to get fancy with the panorama, but my camera is smarter than I am and adjusted the colors between shots.  But check out the time lapse action with that wave moving across the bottom.  It's the same wave.)

There are a few restaurants inside Cliff House, plus the obligatory gift shop, but I was there for the views.

For some reason, there's also a totem pole.

Walking north from Cliff House, you pass by Sutro Baths, separated from the Pacific by some hazardous-looking rocks.  I consulted the Not For Tourist guide, which identified the baths as "a well-masked history lesson."  So well-masked that NFT did not elaborate on what that lesson was.  Back at home I looked it up in the Lonely Planet, which explains that the same dude who built Cliff House built a huge baths/spa/swimming pool complex, which was never very popular in spite of the scenic neighborhood.  Following it's partial demolition-- completed by a fire-- it has become a hangout for seagulls.  (There are also alleged seals in the neighborhood, but I didn't spot any.)

The first picture is the view from Cliff House, and the second looks back to Cliff House:

(This looks like another sort of panorama, but that weird hill-matching action going on in the center is just a coincidence.  Or I'm a really skilled photographer.)

Down at the bottom of that same path, there's a neat little cave/tunnel that leads through to, yes, more views of the rocks and the Presidio.

If you head back up the path, you come across the following sign.  My day just isn't complete without danger in high places, so I headed on up.

It was seriously windy, but even so, it smelled good.  There are these little white flowers growing all over the side of the path on the way up.

And that's where I got my "panorama" of the Presidio, and a few more.  Looking out at the sea, and then looking down,

down,

down,

at the water.  My day isn't complete without a little vertigo, either.

Thoroughly chilled, I caught the bus back down and stopped at the Northeastern corner of Golden Gate park to see the windmill.  Because... there's a windmill there.

It was nice to go out and take some pictures, and seeing that the weather has abruptly turned into, like, winter  or something (currently: 44 and raining), I'm glad that I took the opportunity while I had it.  Once I cracked open the Not For Tourists (other than to find my nearest Walgreens, that is) and Lonely Planet, I noticed that there are a few other spots that I can check out on the cheap (total cost: $1.50 for the bus) next time I have a sunny day off.  I'll leave you with my favorite picture, from one of Cliff House's lookout spots.  I think this shot is worth $1.50 and some cold fingers all by itself: