The Rest Of San Fran....

I apologize, I am a loser. Things have been crazy and I have so many things I need to blog about so i guess I will finish up San Fran....

Day 2 in San Fran started with a little trip to Mel's Diner in a non tourist area in San Fran. Once we finished eating we hopped on some public transportation (pt) (thank God for the 3 day transportation pass) and headed to Alamo Square, a park. This is where the Painted Ladies Victorian houses are located. You may actually remember this from the opening credits of Full House. At the park there is a very wierd garden with shoes used as planters. Very cool.

After Alamo, we took some more pt and headed to Haight/Ashbury. Still a very unique place with lots of people to keep me entertained. We actually saw some undercover cops pull up on some guys and do a shakedown. When I visited this same area pre Panda, I remembered a great place that had the greatest Sangria. It is called Cha Cha Cha and we had some finger foods and a liter of Sangria. We walked around some more and then decided to take pt back to the ferry building to walk around.

After a quick stop at our hotel, we got a cab and went to check out Coit Tower. There was no way in hell I was going to the top so we just checked it out at ground level. Luckily it wasn;t so foggy that we couldn't see some amazing sights from the tower, ie. Golden Gate, Alcatraz. I followed Panda down some stairs (actually a shit load of stairs). Luckily we were walking down and not up because he would have had to call 911 to revive my out of shape ass.

Once we hit the bottom, we decided to head (walk) over to Lombard street. Once again, I had to pull strength that I didn't know existed within myself to make the walk. But we did it and manage to make it to the top without any 911 incidents. Fortunately, for us, the cable car that drives past Lombard street is very popular so Panda and I decided to walk back to our hotel for a brief rest.

The conceirge gave us a great hookup at an Italian restaurant (very non touristy) and we had the best italian food and of course, vino. After dinner, we took a cab to Chinatown and walked around. We headed back to our hotel for the night to refuel and recover from all the walking....

Day 3....Oh boy.....WHAT AN EXPERIENCE!! The morning started off quite calm and we headed down to the ferry building to check out the Farmer's Market (FM). Seriously folks, you have not experienced a FM like one in San Fran. I, of course, went back to the seafood store we stopped at on Day 1 and got a crab breakfast burrito. Oh my...AWESOME! After the breakfast and FM, I got Panda to agree to head over to Old Navy....This place is 3 STORIES!!!!

As we were making our way over to Old Navy via PT and walking, we noticed some very interesting people.....Lets just say angel wings, teletubbie costumes, lycra, fish nets, etc. Of course, this made Panda very curious and kept asking if we could check out where the freaks were going. I agreed but only after we visited Old Navy. As I was looking at clothes for DDT, Panda comes running up (literally) saying that the freaks are on parade in front of Old Navy. So we head out and sure as shit, there is a parade of freaks coming down the street.

WTF!! What is this?! I am guessing it was a ravers parade but it was later that we found out it was Love Fest. OMFG people, you have no idea what we saw this day. I did take over 200 pictures and will post a few here but this does not even do it justice. The following url is one that Panda came across from a pro photog: http://www.pbase.com/davidyuweb/love_fest_san_francisco_2008
All I want to know is why do old men feel it is okay to go completely naked down the street?

After stopping for a drink (or two or three) we walked around Chinatown and did a little more sight seeing. One place Panda really wanted to stop was a bar called Vesuvio. It was made famous by Jack Kerouac and here is the website: http://www.vesuvio.com/

I am sure I am missing tons of things but you all get the point of the trip....We walked, had great food, walked, had great drinks, walked, saw awesome things, walked, etc...

Here are some pics:

The Plant garden



Alamo Square and Painted Ladies



Haight/Ashbury



Coit Tower



The Stairway from hell



Lombard Street




Love Fest
















Chinatown






Vesuvio