SF Day 2

Continued from San Francisco Day 1 Part 2.

Last day in SF, gotta make it count. Baby is slowly adjusting to the time zone change, so instead of waking up at 3am, she now wakes up at a more reasonable 6am-ish. I’ll take it.

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Got everything ready and out the door, but it was a false start. The rain looked manageable when we left our hotel, and within about 2 minutes it was raining sideways. Everything we wore got soaked through in about 5 minutes and we had to turn back around to seek shelter back at our hotel. During our retreat back to our hotel, another pedestrian looked at PL in her baby carrier and in passing said, “Poor baby!”. Damn you rain!

DSC08336Defeated by the rain this round, but not going to give up yet. If the doppler radar is to be believed, this heavy rain should pass in about 5 minutes…errr…make that 10 minutes…

DSC08337Make that 15 minutes…

DSC08339 Fine, make that 30 minutes until the rain passes by. We got nailed by that little patch of yellow and red right over SF when we were outside a little ago.

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30 minutes later, the rain is now much lighter, but our clothes are still semi soaked. If only we had been slower this morning getting ready, we would have stayed completely dry. Grr.

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On our way to Chinatown for breakfast, we’ll be passing through this tunnel. Best thing about the tunnel is that we avoid the rain while in it!

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DSC08343Now in Chinatown.

DSC08344They are always doing construction over here. I remember construction last time I was here in Chinatown a few years back too.

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Dim Sum for breakfast. Just for me and RL, my in laws already grabbed some breakfast while we slept in some this morning.

DSC08348We visited this same spot last time we were in SF. It’s good enough to warrant a second visit this time around as well.

DSC08350Sleeping baby is a good baby. I love how soft her hands are. Cutest thing ever.

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DSC08356Got my order and this time the employees weren’t as rude and brisk as they were last time. Maybe because I am carrying a baby so they were nicer to me?

DSC08357Took our dim sum and went across the street to this bakery where we’ll get drinks and…

DSC08358Egg tarts!! Yes!!

DSC08360Not shown are the soy bean milk and milk teas that we got to wash everything down. Yum, just as good as we remembered it from last time. Can’t come to a city with a high Asian population and not have Asian food at least once!

DSC08362I feel like I am in Asia…well, if you ignore BH in the photo.

DSC08363After breakfast, we made our way to the Cable Car Museum which was close by Chinatown. Saw this Live Fish transportation. These kind of containers would not be the way I expected live fish to be transported in.

DSC08365Look, it’s stopped raining!

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We’ve arrived at Cable Car Museum, and admission is free!

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DSC08376The motors that power all the cables that run right under the cars.

DSC08377They even have a whole machine shop to make the parts needs for the cars.

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Fascinating how the mechanics of cable cars work.

DSC08381Never knew the cables are usually raised when in use.

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The grip from the front.

DSC08388I wish I could find a time lapse video on the cable splicing, bet it’s really cool.

DSC08389Hand for size reference. Always amazed at how strong steel cables are and they always seem undersized for their function.(I just got lost in a wiki article about wire rope construction…)

DSC08390Love the whirling sounds of large motors and the smell of machine shop grease and oil.

DSC08391There’s a section underground showing where the cables from under the roads enter into the building. Very cool how they designed all these things over 100 years ago.

DSC08396Done with the museum, time to head back to hotel for a nap.

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Lots of giant hills, and it’s starting to rain again.

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Walked by this building again. It’s so cool.

DSC08400It’s already mid March, someone just threw out their Christmas tree. Seriously, what took them so long?

DSC08401Doesn’t seem very safe. That giant rock is just one small earthquake away from busting through that flimsy wall and rolling down the street.

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Finally going downhill, almost back to home base to rest. Traveling with baby is serious business.

DSC08408Cutest thing ever! She sits by herself now, such a big girl! The baby sits by herself too!

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My mother in law DH had suggested an ingenious system to dry RL’s wet shoes. I must give credit to her, it’s pretty clever.

3 hours and a not long enough nap later, it’s time to head out again. Our last day here, must rally and do one more thing before it’s too late. But so tired and so sleepy…

DSC08409Look, the rain has stopped!! We are heading across town to The Legion of Honour fine arts museum.

DSC08411Our 38R bus shows up about a minute after we arrived at the bus stop. I guess that’s not such a big deal since the frequency is every 6 minutes. Love the high frequency rapid buses.

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Haha, I love how DH was so surprised by this photo somehow.

DSC08414A little bit over 30 minutes on the bus, and we are off on foot again. Much more of a neighborhood over here.

DSC08415This being SF, we can’t get anywhere without at least walking up a hill of some sort.

DSC08416Almost there.

DSC08419According to Google Maps, we are supposed to cross the street and go hiking through that trail.

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DSC08423No joke, this is where Google tells me to walk on.

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DSC08425We’ll just pretend this maintenance site doesn’t exist in this pristine park.

DSC08428According to Google Maps, we are supposed to cross this chain linked fence to get on the concrete footpath on the other side!!! What if there wasn’t already a cut fence, what would we have done then? Did Google Maps already know that the fence had been cut?

DSC08429The business end of Legion of Honour. I’ve never seen this side of the building before.

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RL with her thin sole Keds can’t go through any shallow water crossing without soaking her feet again, so her mommy offered to carry her over the puddle, just like a baby.

IMG_5685Made it! I think DH enjoyed it more than anyone.

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Finally reached the front. This was a fun little short detour walk through a nice park/golf course. Thanks Google Maps, for making us feel like we were trespassing!

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DSC08440Ahh, The Thinker, still here just as I remembered it from the last time.

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DSC08442Since we took a longer than expected break this afternoon, we only have about an hour and a half before the museum closes for the day. That’s just perfect amount of time since the museum isn’t very big.

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DSC08449A random ceiling as part of their collection.

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Yeah, that’s not creepy at all…

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The artist woke up one day, and decided to paint a woman topless, stabbing herself in the stomach. Also, let’s give her really wide spread breasts…At least that’s how I envisioned it.

DSC08453This was the star of the museum at the moment, on loan from the Louvre.

DSC08456Pretty cool, actually. Except I can’t think of Rafael without thinking about the Ninja Turtles.

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DSC08459 Took this picture just because of boob.

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Surprise!!

DSC08462Good baby, happily chilling in her carrier in the museum…mostly. Then she got hungry, so must retreat to museum cafe soon and give her some food.

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The one on the bottom is really creepy to me.

DSC08470Museum cafe food almost never disappoints. Small museum, so we are roughly halfway done by the time we got here. Still plenty of time after a quick snack to finish up the other half.

DSC08472Ate food, now happy. I just remembered that I forgot to take photos of my cappuccino and my chocolate mousse cake. It’s hard to remember to take photos with the baby around demanding attention left and right. But she’s so cute though…

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Ahhh, giant ruff. Always comical.

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Again, boobs.

DSC08478Giant ruffs all around!

DSC08479This one was my favorite in the whole museum. Three favorite things in this photo.

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DSC08484Faberge jewelry.

DSC08485Such intricate detail. I wonder how they make those little waves?

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DSC08488Just another Monet.

DSC08489I like this one.

DSC08492Scratching my butt.

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DSC08498Crazy detail.

DSC08499Cool frame.

DSC08500More Faberge.

DSC08501I think I appreciate it more just because I also enjoy saying the word, “Faberge”.

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More Rodin.

DSC08511One last photo of the Rodin center piece here before leaving the museum. This visit was short and sweet!

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If you’ve ever wondered what The Thinker’s crotch area looks like, now wonder no more!

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DSC08517We came out of the museum to dry weather, with bits of blue sky!

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DSC08520Taking a different way through the park—well, golf course, on our way to the bus.

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DSC08527I wonder why I never realized that Legion of Honour was located right next to a golf course….

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DSC08531Succulents grow like crazy in this climate. What an enjoyable little walk through nature(golf course) after being in the middle of the city for a couple of days.

DSC08533Almost to the bus stop now.

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DSC08535Towards the end of the line means almost empty bus, nice.

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Back around Union Square, no time to waste until dinner. It’s 6:20pm and PL is going to want to go to sleep soon. We head straight from the bus to the restaurant.

DSC08544The restaurant we are looking for is supposedly located in an alley.

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Found, there’s the little sign.

DSC08550Busy night, it is after all Friday.

DSC08553We actually got sat in a separate dining room in an adjacent building since there were no more open tables in the bustling part of the restaurant.

DSC08556It’s nice and quiet over here, appreciated especially since we’ve got a tired baby with us.

DSC08557Well deserved drink after our long day.

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DSC08564One last fancy meal in SF before we take off towards home tomorrow, yum.

DSC08565Started raining again after dinner, good thing our walk back to the hotel is a short one.

DSC08566They have a singer-songwriter playing a gig in the hotel bar tonight. Why is singer-songwriter a genre of music? It seems like almost all types of music genres can have singer-songwriters, but yet when I hear singer-songwriter, a type of indie music comes to mind and reality never seems to deviate far from it.

Tired, no time for singer-songwriter music for me tonight. Tomorrow, we head back home.

To be continued at Home, Sweet Home.