Castro District

Glitter, rainbows, and lots of rock hard buildings. 

After climbing our way to Coit tower, then Lombard, we caught a bus over to the Mission district and  walked over to the Castro district from there. 

There were a lot of fantastic murals, shops and other fun things to see along the way!

San Francisco is renowned for being one of the most accepting and proud cities in the US,

and according to the San Francisco travel website, it's the city that

"practically invented gay" so we felt it a necessary inclusion in our stops throughout the city. 

Check out my photos below!

Lombard Street, San Francisco

Lombard street is one very wibbly wobbly road, zigzagging it's way up a steep hill. It's a one way road, so if you hope to test your driving along it's curves be sure to approach from the right side!

Having just visited Coit tower, we walked to Lombard relatively quickly while still enjoying the sights along the way.

San Francisco's Coit Tower

Since it was our last day in town, we decided to hit up a few more landmarks before we had to go. Our flight wasn't scheduled to depart until after 10pm, so we had plenty of daylight to kill yet. Christian, our AirBnB host, kindly offered to let us leave our backpacks with him until it was time for our flight so we were spared the additional hiking weight…which, considering the verticality of our destinations, was really appreciated!

Well rested after a leisurely evening we headed out for the city early in the day. 

Photos ahead!

Downtown Oakland

Downtown Oakland. 

Since we were here on a weekend the city center was eerily quiet as we ambled through.

Day trip to Berkeley

Welcome to Berkeley, a lovely little town north of San Francisco and Oakland, famous for having the oldest college campus in California along with it's politically liberal vibe.

While walking through Berkeley, it's evident that the town takes great pride in itself. The street lamps are adorned with baskets of flowers, the sidewalks are clean and the buildings beautiful and well maintained.

Quirky and creative individuals and businesses abound, with small cafes offering live orchestral performances or Japanese curry. One intersection has three distinct movie cinemas operating on different corners, each offering different movies. Amoeba records flagship store opened in 1990 in Berkeley, so if you're a music geek that's worth noting. It's a huge store with a robust selection and has expanded with newer locations in San Francisco (which we visited) and another in Hollywood.

While a fairly small town of permanent residents at around 100k, I imagine it's pretty safe to estimate that the population boons during college season. Several people remarked on the amusing contrast of seeing young preppie college kids mingling with a bunch of hippies, but that's the kind of atmosphere the town fosters. Everyone we spoke with was friendly and glowed with pride for their home.

Curious? I've got lots of photos for you below!

San Francisco: Aquarium of the Bay

You may not know this about me, but I have a major nerd-on for marine life. 

From cephalopods to aquatic vertebrates, crustaceans to coral, I think almost everything that swims, glides, wiggles and jiggles in the seas is pretty neat…

for the most part. 

I mean, in all seriousness, there are some intensely creepy little freaks roaming the oceans, like goblin sharks. 

Friggin' Xenomorphs of the sea, I tell you!!! Look at that retractible jaw!

But the San Francisco aquarium is devoid of goblin sharks in all their nocturnal deep sea horror, so fear not, friends!

I brought back a plethora of photographs to share the joy of aquatic lifeforms with you!

Yes, YOU!

(You special and unique little snowflake!)

So read on, amigos!

Ferry ride from Oakland to San Francisco

Riding ferries has long been a favorite way for me to see a new city. I've taken ferries in Tokyo, Hiroshima, Hong Kong, Seattle, Boulder City and San Francisco and they always offer such a unique experience. Growing up my dad was always taking me out on boating adventures around the Southwest, so having spent so much of my life in, on or around the water I absolutely love reconnecting with it whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Oakland's Jack London Square

After a brief refresher back at the house, we walked over to Jack London Square to wait for the ferry over to the San Francisco side of the bay. 

A lovely couple walking by offered to take photos for us when they saw Antho attempting with a self-timer. He was able to make this adorable gif with all the photos they took. :) Right on!

Oakland's Chinatown

After taking off from the Tenderloin and checking in at our AirBnB lodging, we headed over to Oakland's own little Chinatown! Our host Jackie recommended the area to us and we're happy to have taken her up on the suggestion. While fairly small it comprises a fairly well-rounded community center, with banks, restaurants, medical facilities and shops all nestled tightly together.

Return to Haight & The Dead House on 7/10

After checking in to our hostel, we returned to Haight street to check out the Grateful Dead house on 710 Ashbury on 7/10, because, duh. Between our psychedelic light show (710 Visuals) and our appreciation for the Dead it was a must stop on a tour, especially given the date.

Yeah, we're dorks.

Youth Hostel Central, 116 Turk, San Francisco

After all the fun we had at the Exploratorium, we headed back to the Tenderloin to check in at Youth Hostel Central. I've heard a lot of overblown warnings about "bad" neighborhoods in the past and never really felt threatened or uncomfortable in any area of Hong Kong, Seoul, Japan, London or Tijuana that I explored but perhaps I was lucky. For the most part, that was true enough of the Tenderloin, too, though I did notice some guys tried to intimidate Antho as they walked past us…

San Francisco Exploratorium

We finally made it to the Exploratorium! Nyee!!

Lots of photos of fun stuff ahead.

San Francisco Embarcadero area

As we left the BART station, we found ourselves stepping out into a bustling street full of arts and crafts stands. The handcrafted trinkets were in stark contrast to the concrete and asphalt of the urban sprawl.

I love the clock tower, but the views of the bay along the walkway were lovely. This was the first really sunny day we'd experienced in the area as the past two days had been overcast and a bit misty.

Westfield Mall

Once we found our lodgings, we realized we still had quite some time left to kill yet before we could check in. While in the Embarcadero area previously the Exploratorium had caught Antho's eye, so we decided to head that way and encountered the Westfield mall while on our way. Isn't the ceiling beautiful?

Heading to the Tenderloin

After two nights at Casa Loma, we had to pack up and prepare to move on to another hotel for our third night. Rather than stay in the same location for the entire trip, we thought it would be more interesting to spend some time in different neighborhoods during our stay to get a more thorough feel for the city. Before leaving Casa Loma, we utilized their shared showers... The last time I used shared showers was when I was in Kyoto's 9hour Capsule hotel, so this was a bit different to be certain. :P

San Francisco: Walk up Fillmore street

After hoofing it to the bridge and back across, we stopped for some grub then headed up Fillmore to our hotel, Casa Loma. This was our last night staying there and after all the walking we were looking forward to stretching out with our feet up…but first, we had to get there!

En route we passed this cute little joint, Pizza Orgasmica; the original sin. Oh, those cheeky pizza people.

Golden Gate Bridge

We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge!

Initially, we had planned to bike across, because how fun does that sound?!

A lot, actually, if you're like us. We like active adventures!

However, we found that the only places to rent bikes from near the bridge are still quite some ways away from the bridge itself, and by this point we'd been walking about 8 hours and it was getting late so we were worried about getting the bikes back in time. 

We'd hit Haight street, Golden Gate Park and the Conservatory of Flowers, walked up to Immigrant point lookout, then made it to the iconic bridge!

Let's get a walking'! 

San Francisco: Golden Gate Park to the Golden Gate Bridge

We walked a lot while we were in San Francisco.

I believe we did around 10 or 12 miles per day.

Neither of us are joggers, so running was an unrealistic option for exploring the city in all it's quirks, rental cars are expensive (and parking even worse), and the bike rentals seemed like a great idea until it came to all those beautiful but steep hills. 

So, we walked.

Sure, we also took the BART, the busses, and the occasional trolley car from time to time, but mostly we walked. 

San Francisco is a city that, despite it's hills, is probably best explored by foot. The neighborhoods aren't nearly so far apart as they might initially appear; walking from Japantown to Chinatown took us maybe an hour and that's with frequent stops for photographs along the way and sipping some of the green tea I picked up at Nijiya. Fisherman's wharf was a quick trolley ride from there. 

Even our sojourn from the Golden Gate Park to the bridge wasn't terrible, and we'd already walked to the park from our hotel near Haight. 

Walking gives you the opportunity to see things you might miss out on when zipping past in a car, or to stop at your leisure to smell the flowers or admire the view without worrying about causing a traffic incident. On our walk from the park to the bridge, we passed a small produce store where we picked up sugar dates, peaches and fresh Rainier cherries for fresh snacking during our hike.

San Francisco's Conservatory of Flowers

Strolling through the park, we found our way to the Conservatory of Flowers! 

If you're into movies, you might recognize it from the movie Heart and Souls with Robert Downey Jr. Antho showed me the movie a couple months back, so I was able to appreciate that tidbit of trivia. :)

The building is separated into various themed environment rooms, catering to the needs of differing varieties of flowers. Overflowing with blossoms and as beautiful as this place is, this is going to be one seriously photo heavy post. Ye of slower inter webs be warned!

Golden Gate Park

After ambling along Haight, we eventually made our way to Golden Gate Park. It's a huge urban park with a lot of attractions for people of all activity levels and ages.