Gallivanting Grandma

Tuesday – July 24, 2012

Today was our last day in San Francisco. It’s an amazing and interesting city. We visited most of the tourist attractions on our list  in the last four days. We were beginning to know where things were in the city and how to get around. That sad feeling of leaving a nice place was setting in and we talked about how to make our last day really special. It’s not possible to see everything in a big city like San Francisco in a few days. It’s good to leave something “for the next time.” This was our pledge to return someday soon.

SFMoMA

We had saved the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for “a rainy day,” after all it was San Francisco!, but the weather had been so beautiful all week that we never got there. Today was the day! As soon as we walked into the large lobby, our eyes went up to the sparkling lights hanging above our heads. Like snow twinkling on trees in moonlight, an artistic oeuvre dangled from the high ceiling. The round lights flickered in what seemed like a random pattern. I had the sense of being in a soft snowfall!

View of San Francisco from SFMoMa

We took the elevator to the top floor with a plan to work our way down to the street level. As we left the elevator we were greeted by an expansive view of the city. It reminded me of some of the older areas of Manhattan. We walked to the indoor/outdoor roof garden to see the sculptures. Several of Louise Bourgeois’ giant spiders entitled The Nest greeted us in front of the cafe.

The Sherman Ice Cream Float

The cafe has clever snacks and desserts which were designed to celebrate modern and contemporary artists whose works are on display or are part of the museum’s collection. I especially liked the colorful Mondrian multi-level slice of cake and the bright Cindy Sherman ice cream float with edible glitter. I didn’t see any Louise Bourgeois spiders to munch on, thank goodness.

 Sky Light & Shadows

We enjoyed walking through SFMoMA to see their installations and current exhibits. The museum has a good representative collection of 20th Century art, some of which was on display in a series of instructive galleries which described the evolution of contemporary art over the last 50 years. Oh my gosh! It’s been 50 years since the 1960s! It feels like yesterday…

Dim Sum Lunch at Yank Sing

All that art helped us work up an appetite for lunch. We found a Chinese dim sum restaurant a few blocks away from the museum with a Zagat rating of 26, which is extremely rare for Chinese food, so we walked over with high expectations. The dim sum at Yank Sing was good, perhaps the best in SF, but we have had better in New York. The ultimate best dim sum we ever ate was in Toronto a couple of years ago!

San Francisco Street Car 1940s Vintage

SFMoMA and Yank Sing are located in the SOMA District, South of Market Street, on the edge of the Financial District. The San Francisco Railway Museum & Gift Shop is located a few blocks away so we walked over to see the living history museum.  It’s a small single-room shop located at the street car terminal of the “F” Line, across the road from the Ferry Terminal.

Brooklyn, NY Street Car 1940s

The museum/shop is manned by volunteers who have worked very diligently to buy, restore, and maintain the fleet of 47 street cars which operate in San Francisco daily. With the assistance of then Mayor Dian Feinstein and public donations, the group has been able to purchase old vintage street cars from a wide variety of cities (including Milan Italy) and restore them and get them on the street.

Italian Street Car From Milan 1920s

Because the street cars run on electricity and not diesel fuel, they are environmentally friendly as well as looking really cool rolling down the streets. There is only one route that the vintage cars run on which is the “F” Line. They go from Fisherman’s Wharf along the Embarcadero and then along Market Street to Castro and back.

1940s San Francisco Street Car

The very friendly woman in the museum/shop spent a good deal of time telling us all about the street cars. Then we went out to watch and photograph the cars as they went by the museum. There is also a great website giving more information about the history of this wonderful project. It is: www.streetcar.org

Los Angeles Street Car – 1940s

Rare San Francisco Street Car

Street Car from Philadelphia, PA

We would still be there watching the colorful street cars roll by, commenting on how beautiful they look, but we decided to move on. Literally! We jumped on one of the historic street cars for our last ride in San Francisco this trip! :-) I think, if we lived in San Francisco we would “collect” street cars by photographing and riding each and every one of them. It’s very reassuring to know that San Francisco is still the transportation wonderland that my young sons discovered many years ago. The city is preserving and continuing that tradition for future generations…..  Bravo San Francisco!!!

San Francisco International Airport

Monday – July 23, 2012

Another beautiful sunny morning in San Francisco! Wow, are we lucky!!

The Cable Car Museum

The Cable Repair Shop

The Moving Cables

The Four Main Cable Car Lines

The Cable on a Spool

Historic Cable Car

Another View of the Cable Repair Shop

A Cable Car Full of Tourists

Cable Car Number 13

Site of Future Transit Hub

Chinatown – San Francisco

Another Mode of Transportation in San Francisco!

A Modern Street Car

The Palace of Fine Arts of 1919

View From The Palace

Another View

View of the Golden Gate Bridge From Crissy Field Beach

Young Bikers in The Presidio

The Walt Disney Family Museum

The Presidio Green Shuttle

The Golden Gate Bridge

Street Cars

Interior of an Old Street Car

Fisherman’s Wharf at Dusk

Ghirardelli Square After Dark

Sunday – July 22, 2012

We were surprised to find a brilliant blue cloudless sunny morning when we walked out of the hotel. We had adjusted to cloudy days over the last few weeks of travel along the Pacific. We were staying just off Powell Street and we could hear the “ding ding dings” of the cable cars. We walked down the street to check out the length of the line.

Powell Street Cable Car

Powell & Market Streets Turntable

Turning the Cable Car

Going Up Powell Street

Going Down Powell Street!!

Fisherman’s Wharf

Historic Electric Street Car

Street Car Station

Clock Tower at the Ferry Terminal

Cheese Shop in the Ferry Terminal

View of the Bay Bridge From the Ferry Terminal

“F” Line Street Car at the Embarcadero

City Hall With “Breathing Lotus”

Indonesian Sculpture in Asian Art Museum

Grand Staircase in Asian Art Building

Street Performer Posing for a Photo

Fire Department at the Inn

Thumbs Up on the Cable Car!

Saturday – July 21, 2012

We were staying at the Inn at Union Square which is a small boutique hotel diagonally across the street from Union Square right in down-town San Francisco. After a light continental breakfast, we went out into the brilliant sunshine to explore the city.

Historic Street Car

We went around the corner to a shop that sold transportation passes. The MUNI-Pass give unlimited rides on all the buses, trains, trolleys, cable cars, and street cars in the entire city. Our goal was the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, so we took a bus to the park.

Intersection of Haight & Ashbury Streets

The best thing about above-ground transportation in a city is that you can see where you’re going and you’re able to view all the neighborhoods. The bus drove through the infamous Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco. Today, young tourists enjoy walking around the district to see tie-dye t-shirt shops and psychedelic graffiti.

Carousel

We got off the bus at Golden Gate Park and walked into the park. We followed a path and arrived at a wonderful big children’s playground. Just past that we found a lovely carousel which was made in Watertown, New York.

The California Academy of Sciences

We continued on for a while, passing a lawn bowling court and a botanical garden. Finally we arrived at the “science museum”. There were lots of children and families around the museum.  We crossed the boulevard to find an outdoor art show & sale positioned around a fountain.

Entrance to the Japanese Tea Garden

We finally found the Japanese Tea Garden, paid our admission and entered. It was the oldest garden in San Francisco according to the sign. It was not as large as the Japanese garden we had visited in Vancouver, but was still quite beautiful.

The Tea House

Japanese Pagoda

Reflecting Pool

Beautiful Garden

Since we were so close, we decided to see the exhibits in the De Young Art Museum. The building was interesting and the collection was also surprisingly good. I love the palm trees around the building!

The De Young Museum

Outdoor Cafe

View Inside, Looking Out of the Museum

Contemporary Art Room

Glass Sculpture

Tired Visitor or a Different Perspective

Nice Light on the Statue

View of the Sculpture Garden

Performance Piece and Spectators

We had walked many many miles today! And we were exhausted. We found a bus which passed near our hotel and rode back across the city. After a bit of a rest in our suite, we ventured out for dinner. Chinatown was close by so we walked up the hill to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. We had a fun day exploring parts of San Francisco we had never seen before.

Cable Car Going Down the Hill on Powell Street

Friday, July 20, 2012

Building Number One

There we were in the middle of Silicon Valley: two long-time Apple and Macintosh Computer users! Cupertino, California, the world headquarters of Apple, was a mere six miles away. We decided to make the pilgrimage to the official “Visitor’s Center”. :-)

The Visitor’s Center at Apple Headquarters

We did know that they didn’t sell computers at the store. Jeff had checked it all out before we arrived. They sold just t-shirts, caps, and other small computer accessories. Of course, they had several models of the latest computers on display to try out.

Inside the Visitors Center

I was very surprised to see that the place was crowded! Apparently there are many other Apple devotees who wanted to make the pilgrimage to the Holy Grail!

Of course, our goal for the day was to reach San Francisco so we tore ourselves away from Apple Headquarters and continued North to the “City by the Bay”.

Our First View of San Francisco

Yes! This is a real photo of San Francisco (not Photo-shopped) with a 100 percent cloudless blue sky!! We certainly were lucky!

Up Powell Street Hill

We left our luggage at the Inn and continued to Fisherman’s Wharf to return the car to the Hertz office located there. There was lots of traffic and people and noise and confusion, but we made it and dropped off the rental car. San Francisco is not an easy city to drive in!

Down the Other Side of the Hill

It was an extraordinarily beautiful day and it was a relief to get rid of the rental car. Now we were free to roam the city without the responsibility of someone else’s car. :-) We were in Fisherman’s Wharf – a BIG tourist destination, so we decided to start our explorations there.

Fisherman Wharf Sign

This is a large area of San Francisco which historically was the fishing center of the city. Today, it is mainly a tourist destination filled with restaurants, shops, and street entertainment. It was packed with lots of tourists from all over the world.

At the Wharf

We walked around the wharf looking at the shops and the tourists. It was a noisy and carnival atmosphere and there was a lot to see. I’m not a shopper so I’m never tempted to buy lots of chachkas and junk.

Old Fashioned Trolleys

I love these old trolley cars! I remember the first time I visited San Francisco with my two young sons, sometime in the late 1970s. We had fun riding on all the different kinds of public transportation vehicles: trolleys, buses, cable cars, trams, trains, etcetera. We discovered that San Francisco was a transportation wonder-land.

The Musee Mecanique

Jeff and I stumbled upon the Musee Mecanique. It is a free museum sponsored by the City of San Francisco and houses hundreds of old mechanized amusements. See the website for the history of the collection: www.museemechanique.com

The Thimble Theatre

The Oldest Amusement in the Museum

Moving Toothpick Construction

Another Mechanical Amusement

Boudin Bakery & Cafe

We had a late lunch at the Boudin Bakery & Cafe. Then looked around at their shop and took photographs. There was a big area showing the bakers rolling and baking bread. San Francisco is famous for “sour dough” bread.

Sour-dough Bread For Sale

Bread Basket

After lunch, we walked further down the wharf to Pier 39. Jeff had seen seals here on a previous visit and we wanted to see them again.

Sign for Pier 39

There were just a few seals on the docks. A sign explained that the seals go elsewhere during the summer to raise their young. Then they return during the cooler weather and spend their winters here.

Sleeping Seal

The sign also explained that the seals first arrived on these docks just 22 years ago, after a particularly strong earthquake. They have returned every winter since then. Jeff said that all the docks were full of seals when he saw them.

More Sleeping Seals

Carousel on Pier 39

Mickey Doll

Another Cool Old Trolley

Bag Piper in the Park

We became tired after walking around for several hours, so we decided to ride a bus back to the Inn. The piper in the photo was in Union Square Park playing his bag pipe while we walked by. He looked regal standing in the bright sun while playing a Scottish marching tune. (I have to remember to crop out the tourist in the striped shirt when I get home!)