San Francisco Trip - October 1998 Published October 11, 1998 Cast of Characters: Cameron, Ben, Matt, Jonathan, and Susan. A week ago today I was lying in the green grass of Dolores Park on a hillside overlooking San Francisco, my skin turning pinkesh-red. I don't bother to try and tan because my skin is so pale it never works. My biggest concern was protecting my head from the sun, as I lose more and more hair every day. For four days we wandered around San Francisco looking for a hat, a movie poster shop, and the elusive Korean restaurant Matt kept raving about. I never did find a hat for my increasingly pink forehead, the only poster shop I could find was on Pier 39, a notorious tourist trap, and that was at 1:00 A.M. in the morning. The Korean place we never found, but we did find a different one called Shabu Shabu on 9th Ave (near Irving and Judah) which had the same cook-your-own-food-at-your-table concept. A $13 all-you-can-eat cookfest of beef, prawns, chicken, cod, bacon, pork, lamb, corn, rice, and tons of other stuff presented in a buffet style, it was the last place we ate before heading back to the airport to sleep it off on the red-eye back to Ann Arbor. We arrived in San Francisco only to follow Matt (a trained marathon runner) halfway around the city on foot, trying to locate a hostel to stay at. After walking for what seemed like 4-5 miles (from the CalTrain depot) lugging our way-too-heavy luggage, we eventually ended up at the Globe Hostel at Folsom and Harrison (between 7th and 8th Sts.). For a mere $18 a night you can stay in a room with 7 other people and share a bathroom which was described by Ben as "sketchy." Sure it was dirty and a bit skanky, but it was clear that Ben's never traveled overseas, as scenes like that are pretty common in Europe, as are the youth hostels. I was OK with the Globe until I looked behind my bed (a wooden bunkbed) and saw a used condom laying snakeskin-like on the dirty carpet. We stayed at the Globe only one night, and we all agreed to find a hotel the next day. Which we did. For $90 a night, we stayed at the Stratford near Union Square all five of us packed into a room that is, well, clearly no bigger than a couple of walk-in closets. Just enough room for a double bed and a bureau with a bolted-down TV. The bathroom was so small, they had to put the sink in the bedroom. But, at least it was clean. Susan, a friend of Matt's, had to fly back on Monday because she had to work, so it was just the four of us from work, left to fend for ourselves. Getting the hang of the public transportation system (called MUNI) took a while, but by the end of the trip, we all had it figured out. It's amazing that you can use the same ticket/pass on the subway, the bus system, and the rail system that ran through the city. I found it very unique that automobiles and the rail cars used the same streets, with the rail cars going anyplace there were tracks to take them, powered by an intricate web of power lines that hung over the city streets. What was even more unique was the buses that used these same lines. Electrically-powered buses that had these grasshopper-like legs sprouting off their roofs attached to the electrical lines above, proved to be a very efficient and clean source of public transportation. On one trip to lower Hague, we got off one of these electric buses only to see it stall in the middle of the intersection. The bus driver had to get out and align the bars up again with the lines above to get the bus moving again. Interesting! Our roommates at the Globe were a German girl named Ulika (Uli) and her boyfriend Sasha. We didn't say a word to them at all that first night and nothing but a brief chat with Sasha in the morning about the shower (he was the first to brave it) and what all the noise was. The noise turned out to be Sasha wrestling the shower door shut. There was so much grime in the door tracks that it took near-superhuman strength to get it to shut. We all got our chance to try this out, naked of course. But, at least the water was hot. Later that second day (Sunday), we ran into Sasha and Uli on Hague Street, and we finally started talking. They turned out to be pretty nice. After a brief chat, we said goodbye, and that was the last we saw of them. On Sunday, we had lunch at Lori's Diner on Powell Street. Lori's is one of those diners that has been doctored up to look like it came right out of the 1950's. It had real 1950s and 1960s working pinball machines, a working photo booth (like you see on the boardwalk in Atlantic City), and other authentic vintage American stuff. The menu was exactly as you'd expect it, full of hamburgers and malts, but the food was quite good. We all ordered chocolate shakes, which hit the spot. Later that day, we visited the monstrous Borders Books & Music on Union Square. I thought the Ann Arbor store was big, with two floors of books and music. The Union Square store is even bigger with three floors, and has escalators! The funniest thing we saw was the large banner advertisement that Amazon had put on the adjacent building above the Borders store. At first, I thought it was a pretty rude thing to do, but on second thought, I'm actually applauding Amazon for such strategic advertising. Oh yeah, the coolest thing about staying at the Globe was the view. About two blocks away, there was a giant inflatable iMac perched on top of a building. The building turned out to be a place called MacADAM, a small Apple reseller. Speaking of Apple, I don't think I've seen such a large concentration of Apple advertising in one place since the New York Macworld Expo back in July. Almost every MUNI stop had at least one large iMac poster adorning it. And I saw lots of Apple's "famous people" billboards all over the city too. Apple certainly has a large presence in this city. On Monday, we walked from our hotel on Powell down to Battery Street looking for the new Saatchi & Saatchi building. We missed it because we were on the wrong side of the street to see the sign on the front of the building, but we found it after a quick phone call. Jeanine, Matt's friend who works there, her assistant Anessa, and the four of us went out to lunch at Grumpy's, a bar near Battery. I'm also told that the folks from BBDO frequent here often. In fact, there are several advertising agencies on or near Battery Street, so I'm betting most of them go here for lunch quite a bit. On Sunday night, we went down to the Lombard area and saw this great Californian Scottish goup play the bagpipes and drums. For being non-native Scotch, the Wicked Tinkers were remarkably good. On Monday night, we all drove down to the theatre district on Van Ness Street. We went to see the new movie Clay Pigeons at Van Ness 1000, a magnificent 7-story movie theatre. Clay Pigeons is a great little movie with a remarkable cast of original characters. Vince Vaugn plays an interesting character named Lester Long who turns out to be a serial killer. The movie itself, is set in Montana (quite unusual for your typical movie) and the plot centers around a love tryst between the main character, Clay, and his best friend's wife, with who he's having an affair. The small-town mentality is portrayed very well in Clay Pigeons and the soundtrack is a stroke of genius that will leave you laughing. While waiting for a MUNI bus, I started looking at some of the flyers posted to the wall. One of them caught my eye. It said "Immortality Systems: Extra Terrestrial Migration - Gene Engineering." And it had one of those scissor-cut rows of tags on the bottom of the flyer, with their URL laser-printed onto it. So, I grabbed one. Right now, that little slip of paper is in the hands of my green bendable alien figure I bought at some shop on Haight Street. During a walk down near Pier 39, I happened to notice this guy's license plate. We found it so condescending and egotistical we decided to leave a note under his windshield. Heh heh. Blah...blah...blah... I don't know what else to say about San Francisco except that I really enjoyed the city and would love to go back, possibly even live there. If the cost of living were lower, I'd be packing my stuff tomorrow.