A couple of weeks ago Kell, Jason and I flew into San Francisco for the weekend before heading to Monterey. Hotels are insanely cheap right now and we stayed at The Opal in Union Square for next to nothing. It was a great central point and there was a place called Mel’s Diner right next door that served espresso floats and milkshakes! I didn’t have one. It has now been added to my list of regrets!
Our first manner of business was to visit Musee Mecanique which is located at Fisherman’s Wharf and claims to be “one of the world’s largest privately owned collections of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines.” The place was amazing! We dropped quite a few quarters on everything from flip-book viewing machines of San Fran burning to an arm-wrestling Lucha Libre. We were especially dazzled (detect sarcasm) by a machine called End of the Trail which was staged to look like a deserted old west scene. It looked as though none of the parts moved and we couldn’t guess what sort of delight a quarter would buy us. Upon depositing our money our minds were blown (more sarcasm) when a fan kicked on, simulating wind, causing the tattered fabric of the covered wagon to move… a little. It was pretty great. I found this video posted by someone else who has a keen eye for greatness.
After the museum we took public transit, including a trolley car, to the Haight-Ashbury area. We wanted to enjoy the area on foot so we got off of the bus a few blocks early and walked up the hill. It was a beautiful walk with such cool houses along the way. As we trekked forward we realized that there must have been a Santa pub crawl in action. We saw Santas ranging all the way from sexy to uni-cycling. What a great city! We hit a bunch of second-hand stores and Amoeba Records. After shopping for a bit we had some delicious vittles at Cha Cha Cha’s and then headed back to the hotel.
We started the next day off with breakfast at Café de la Presse which boasts over 200 foreign magazines and newspapers. The cafe is located right at the gates to Chinatown so we had to take a spin through the area. There were wonderful smells and strange, frightening food items like a skinned chicken with purple skin. From there we hopped over to The Mission where we took a neighborhood walking tour to see as many of the incredible murals as we could fit in. The trek took us down 24th Street, Balmy Alley and into Garfield Square where we were might have seen a Diego Rivera mural, but I can’t say for sure since we didn’t have a great description. No matter, those that we did see were spectacular.
The icing on the Mission cake was stopping at a local taco truck, El Tonayense, and getting fantastic al pastor and pollo asada tacos. Once stuffed we continued our walking tour through the Mission Dolores Park and into Castro. We stopped at the “gayest corner on earth” which I think could have been a little gayer and ended up at a little place for a drink. We played some pinball and the guys were delighted by the rather, ehr, uhm, exposed bathroom. The night was topped with incredible Brittany-style crepes at Ti Couz Creperie… probably the best savory crepe I’ve ever had!
The next day we picked Katherine and Ella up from the airport and headed to Monterey… more on that later.
Slide show with a few more pics…
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