As some of you may have found out, there was no LAN at the hotel in San Francisco and even after finding a Radio Shack and grabbing a phone cord, dialup just wasn't happening and I couldn't be bothered to get it working. So I'm posting this all at once after the fact.

We spent the first couple of days sleeping in and checking out the area around us known as the "Tenderloin" district between SoMa and Castro. I found a good diner close by with decent waffles and shakes. There were also some cool looking buildings around here as well.

Our hotel was on Market St., which is akin to Yonge St. in Toronto. Streets meet it from the north and south at an angle and often change names when they cross it. It's also the main strip for the historic streetcar line that also carries some of those converted trolley buses we used to have.

Like Yonge Street, Market has it's dubious attractions and more general-audience fare as well as hosting a good chunk of the city's homeless population. I was lucky enough to be around when a "Critical Mass" demo started late in the afternoon as, by the time it reached it's peak of 500,000 or so riders, it was too dark to get any pictures. Just south at 5th and Mission is the Sony Metreon - sort of a Playdium meets Paramount with the only PlayStation™ store.

While looking around for the Metreon, I managed to stumble onto the 5th Avenue "Golden Mile" here. Again, some great looking buildings.

On Saturday I did most of my "touristy sight-seeing", taking the streetcar east and around the shore northward, I got off at the last stop at Fisherman's Wharf, which is very touristy the way Niagara Falls is - yikes! I walked up and around toward Golden Gate Park, getting good views of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge. I didn't go far into the park though, as there was a Blues festval on and I didn't feel like wading through crowds.

I stopped off at Ghirardelli chocolate for one of their hot fudge sundaes and it was just as good as I'd heard. I backtracked down the hill a bit, and checked out Gordon's friend Bill's art stand. The other artist on display is originally from Kitchener and does more SF landscape stuff (Bill does abstract), so I bought a print from her. Nearby was a great shot of the Trans-America building. I decided to take a cable car most of the way back, and it was a good way to see more of the detailed architecture.

One of the first days I was there, I saw a building that looked like a flatiron building in an ad. I asked around on Sunday after the fair and many people had no clue what I was talking about. Luckily, the woman at See's Candies (another SF chocolate shop) knew what it was and said it was at First St. It wasn't the one I had seen, but it's nice, and with the sun where it was, the building next to it looks like a giant PlayStation 2 ; ) . The building I was thinking of was on Fourth, and houses a CompUSA, strangely enough. Here also is my token picture of the Folsom Street Fair, which was kind of disappointing, but it was nice to see some freaky straights there too.

-Url