Round Up Time!

I’ve taken a few minutes to pick my favourite 50 shots from my trip. They’re not necessarily the best technical shots but rather a collection of favourites because I got a buzz from capturing them or they bring back very happy memories. They’re linked directly below this paragraph.

My Favourite 50 Tour Shots – A Flickr Set

I’ve also gathered all of the Tokyo, Sydney and San Francisco photographs in a Flickr collection. If you’re really bored some day have a flick through.

The World Tour Collection

I would heartily recommend any of the cities I visited to anyone thinking of taking a trip. The Japanese, Americans and especially the Aussies I met, were all, without exception, lovely people. I’m looking forward to my next major trip, when Mrs P is 50 in 2014. I may need to take her with me on *that* occasion though 😉

Thanks for reading!

The Second Last Post

My last day was a very long one as one might imagine. I was up at 08:00 on Friday morning to get ready to check out of the hotel, and by the time I climbed into my bed on Saturday night at home, almost forty hours had elapsed. Once I had checked out, I went for breakfast and a last walk around the area between Market and Geary, and then walked over towards Yerba Buena Gardens. This chap, Jamie, is part of the Circus Bella, who were putting on a show for the kids (young and old). I had a chat with a few of the artistes before starting. They’re an impressive bunch, especially Natasha who was ring mistress and hoop dancer extraordinaire!

There was a fairly large crowd, all enraptured by the circus – a really nice way to end my time in San Francisco. The band were very good too.

The train journey out to SFO was simple enough and once I got there, I checked by suitcase through to Belfast which allowed me time to have some lunch.

It turned out that my aircraft for the trip to London was a BA 747, which I was pleased about. There is a certain beauty in their design that pleases me greatly.

Unfortunately, I had the seat from hell – 37H. It was up against a bulkhead and couldn’t recline properly, and was situated right beside the toilets which meant that there was a queue of people either standing over me or bumping into me throughout much of the flight. Added to that, the two large chaps beside me, although they were very peasant, took up more space than expected, so I ended up feeling pretty sore and uncomfortable.

I watched The Descendants again, Safe House and some other movie I cannot remember the name of. The food was pretty good and the couple of JDs and Gingers helped me pass the night.

The flight was delayed a bit and by the time I arrived into LHR, it wasn’t practical for me and my cousin to meet up as planned before I caught my next flight to Belfast, which was unfortunate. We’ll be FaceTiming this week while playing chess though 🙂

And apart from the journey home and the nice welcome I received from everyone there, that was the end of my month long photographic holiday, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The good news was rather unexpected – I only put 4lbs on since I left home. REALLY surprising to me as I was rather bruised from falling “off the wagon” repeatedly on my trip, especially when I discovered sweet potato fries in San Francisco. Delighted.com!

Thanks to everyone who has read this blog over the last few months. I’ve got a buzz out of writing it and seeing (on the statistics page) the various countries around the world in which it was being read on a daily basis.

My final post will have two purposes. Firstly, I intend to pick my favourite ten or twelve photographs from my trip and highlight them, and secondly, I’m going to condense my thoughts into a couple of paragraphs around each city I was in for the purpose of recommending or otherwise, certain aspects which future travellers may find useful.

The Last Flickr Set

Colin

Almost Home Time!

My last full day in San Francisco started as usual in Mo’z Cafe with a nice lunch, followed by a walk up Powell to Union Square where I took this shot of one of the Ride the Parks rental bicycles. From there, I climbed another few hills and ended up at Kayo Books, which was thankfully open this time! The woman who works there was very helpful and pointed me in the right direction – I was looking for some gifts for my son, Chris. She also allowed me to take a few pictures of the bookshop which is really worth a visit. I saw books there that I hadn’t laid eyes on since the ’70s. I was initially a little embarrassed as I almost fell over a stack of Penthouse magazines in the middle of the floor – they cater to all tastes here!

After perhaps half an hour here, I left and looked for a coffee fix. I stumbled upon a place called Sweet Woodruff (no idea why it’s called that) which is an open planned upmarket coffee/lunch place on Sutter. The most amazing chocolate and caramel pastry was consumed along with some nice but not very hot coffee, and then I was off again.

Back down towards Powell and as I rounded a corner, I was offered a free illy tin of cold coffee. Of course, I asked for a picture – it came out pretty much as I expected – she’s a professional smiley promo person, after all – apart from the face of her pal in the bottom right corner!

I decided then that i would go back out this evening to try to take some night shots despite my lack of tripod, so I was back in the hotel from around 15:00 uploading to Flickr, then dinner at Lori’s Diner followed by a trip to the cinema to watch Moonrise Kingdom, which is one of those weird Wes Anderson movies. At least it was better than the other two films I’ve seen while I’ve been here, but not by much!

I’m packing up now to get ready for my train journey to SFO tomorrow evening. It’s a thirteen hour flight from SFO to LHR, where hopefully my cousin Chris will be meeting me for a few hours before my onward flight to Belfast and home to my lovely bed by 20:00 Saturday!

The rest of today’s shots are here: San Francisco Day Ten – a Flickr set. Enjoy!

See you on the other side 🙂

Steam-Driven Internet and Other Problems!

Another lie-in today, as I was up until after 02:00 editing and posting photographs, blogging and Blipping! It would not normally take anywhere nearly as long but the hotel’s wifi has died a serious death this past two nights. I keep complaining and they keep resetting it, but it’s not making much difference. Anyhow, I managed to get up and out for about 12:00 and had a delicious Reuben Sandwich in Mo’z Cafe for brunch – thinly sliced pastrami, with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Thousand Island Dressing – toasted!

I hadn’t any serious plans today other than to do some gift shopping, and I ended up walking up towards Union Square where I took about half of today’s shots. I met Cliff, a Hispanic security guard  guy with a red beret and loads of tattoos – very friendly guy, and he agreed to a photo too.

From there, I walked under the Stockton Street underpass in the general direction of Lombard Street, which I didn’t realise was SO FAR AWAY! And so damned hilly, too. My poor knee and heart…

Eventually, I got there, but not without passing some awesome cars (sorry, ladies). This Mustang’s owner told me he bought the sunshade eyes from the Cars movie seven years ago but he still has a giggle when he puts them on.

There was also an early-’70s Porsche 911 and a beautiful Mercedes – click on the Flickr set link below to have a look.

Lombard Street was a sight worth seeing. Dozens of people taking photographs and many, many people driving down the street. I think they were tourists. The residents must be very fed up with it.

My next goal was a decent cup of coffee at the Starbucks near Fisherman’s Wharf. Yes, I had walked right across the city again despite my dodgy knee. Anyhow, only five Starbucks in SF have the new Clover (coffee-lover?) set up, and I had a tall Galapagos, no room. It was very, very smooth and delicious and I had a conversation with the girl who was brewing it, about the machine and working for Starbucks. She was very charming, and an expert, it seems.

No connection whatsoever with coffee, but I spotted this woman wearing a wedding dress (with blue Nike trainers) in Union Square. I asked her if she was getting married. She said no, I’m an actress and I’m playing a part in a game. Fair enough!

Later on, on the streetcar back to my hotel, I had a great chat with an elderly couple from New Zealand (more elderly than me, anyway). They’ve been travelling for seven weeks, and are catching their plane home to NZ on Friday.

Tonight is my second last night in San Francisco. My month away from home has almost come to an end. Once I get the daily blog posts finished, I will be writing a few more to summarise my adventure and perhaps pick my ten favourite photographs, etc, so stick around!

Today’s shots: San Francisco Day Nine – a Flickr set

Rest and Recreation

I changed my mind about taking the open topped bus tour to Golden Gate Park and decided instead to catch a streetcar and go all the way to the end of the line in Castro, and then back down to Downtown to have a look at the Streetcar Museum, which was pretty interesting, although it has no streetcars! The steer is that the streetcars are actually rolling museums, which is true. They have lots of interesting artefacts there and a live link to show where exactly the streetcars are at any given time, which is accessible on the internet: HERE

My first image was taken in the evening up on Geary. I got caught again taking a shot of this guy but he said nothing, and he looked like he’d recently been in a brawl of some sort. I liked how it turned out anyway.

I took the above shot while waiting for a connection up at Ninth Street. I like the proximity of the passengers and how clearly it turned out using the macro setting on the X100.

Once I’d finished at the museum, I went for a wander along South Beach. The main tourist area tends to be North Beach/Fisherman’s Wharf but there are a few things to see in the other direction. I chanced upon the arrival of a warden from the US Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, outside Red’s Java House bar/restaurant pictured below. He proceeded to give a homeless woman to whom I had been speaking a few moment’s earlier, a $1000 fine for catching too many crabs in her net or having them in her bucket. I’m assuming she was homeless as she seemed to have all of her worldly possessions around her at the bench. I’ve no idea how she’s ever going to pay that fine.

This bar/restaurant interested me because as soon as I saw it, I was reminded of my photographic hero, Fred Herzog, who shot on Kodachrome film in the ’50s and ’60s always had really rich colours in his shots, so I’ve tried to emulate it in this image. He shot in Vancouver and Toronto in the docks and other industrial places and this spot seemed to be right up his street!

Later, following my Ozze pie at the Lebanese cafe (see yesterday’s post for the image), I walked around Geary and Powell to do some shopping. I met John Sheehan, a friendly SFPD Officer, who was obviously of Irish descent. Lovely chap! We had a long natter, in between him “chatting” with a few of the locals!

Before I go, I made a short video of two trams this morning at the Steuart stop. The first tram in the video is from San Diego and the second is from Melbourne, Australia, and is the one featured a few days ago on my Blipfoto page as it has a designation of “Nowhere In Particular”. I thought it might be interesting for anyone who hasn’t seen these great streetcars in action to hear what they sound like.

Below the video, is a link to the rest of today’s images – check them out!

Today’s shots: San Francisco Day Eight – a Flickr set

So, I Met This Dog…

This is Diamond Dog, who is on YouTube! Her owner busks for a (good) living on the ferry pier at Sausalito, and is a real showman. I ended up in Sausalito because when I went to pick up my ticket for Alcatraz, it was pre booked at 13:45 and it was 10:00. The ticket comes with three days of free hop on-hop off City Sightseeing tours, and Sausalito was recommended to me as a nice place before I came away, etc. Once I got there, I got off the bus to have some lunch and then I got the ferry back to Pier 1 to catch my boat out to Alcatraz.

The bus driver told us that California’s most expensive home is in the next town over which is called Belvedere and that it recently sold for $65M. He also explained that Angel Island, which is situated in front of Sausalito, was the west coast’s equivalent of Ellis Island for immigrants for many years, but wasn’t nearly as pleasant as Ellis. He was a funny guy and did very well with the tips. One of his jokes was that Lombard Street, in San Francisco, was the country’s second most crooked street (you may remember it from Bullitt?) – does anyone know the first? Answer at the bottom of the page.*

So, Alcatraz. What a strange place! Much smaller, in terms of prisoner population) than I had expected, and it also has much more history that the thirty years it operated as a Federal Penitentiary. Fortress, lighthouse, prison during the American Civil War, a military base and then a military prison and now a national park – it’s had a long and varied history. The largest prison population it had was only 386. If you ever make it out to Alcatraz, be sure to take the audio tour of the cell blocks. It allows you great insight into the daily operation of the prison and detail on some of the escapes.

The Parks Service organise swimming events from Alcatraz to San Francisco fairly regularly too. So if you’re that way inclined, it takes around 40 minutes to swim the 1.2 miles back to the city.

Once I had seen what I wanted to see of the island (and got my head burnt!), I caught the next ferry back. I had a number of things to do on my list. I wanted to find the Kayo Books shop to buy some comic books for my son, Chris, get a haircut, grab some dinner and a coffee and then veg out for a while. Kayo Books is a renowned second-hand bookshop between Leavenworth and Post Streets, so I had a bit of a trek to make, and of course, it was closed. It only opens between Thursday and Sunday! However, and this was a bit of a find, very close by is the Angel Cafe which is owned by Lebanese folk and serves the most amazing food. I tucked into an Ozze pie, made with Filo pastry and stuffed with minced lamb, sultanas and raisins, apricot and walnuts and God knows what else. I’ll be back, as  California’s ex-Governor Arnold once said.

So, once I was fed and watered, I strolled back down Geary and stumbled across a barber/hairdresser shop. Two nice ladies of Chinese origin and a questionable grasp of the English language were working away. $10 for a haircut? That’ll do nicely. However, I forgot about the price of the baseball cap I needed afterwards

The vegging out went well also, although I didn’t get to watch the episode of Breaking Bad that I was looking forward to. Too many photographs to edit. The links are, as usual, below.

So, it’s 11:00 on Tuesday morning now. I’m going to grab some breakfast and maybe I’ll take another bus tour out to the Golden Gate Park. It’s a fantastic morning here. Enjoy your day/night/whatever!

San Francisco Day Seven – a Flickr set

My Alcatraz-related Blipshot for yesterday: Jailhouse Truck!

*America’s most crooked street: Wall Street, of course!

Str8 But Not Narrow

I had long planned to be up and ready early to get some decent shots of today’s Gay Pride 2012 parade in San Francisco, but following an enjoyable FaceTime with Mrs P and the girls, and a delicious breakfast at Mo’z Cafe again, I struggled to get a good spot along Market Street. Eventually I managed to politely squeeze in between an elderly Chinese man and a family of Indians, but as it was earlyish, there was a very dark shadow across most of the street and the parade was mainly on the other side. The X100 struggles with contrasts and I ended up cropping a few of the parade shots to get the best out of them, and so I decided after two and a half hours to move on. I had much more luck with shooting the crowd with people being very happy to be photographed.

It was at this point that the first of FIVE people today commented on my Star Wars/German football team t-shirt. It’s been a looooong time since I could be considered “cool”, “rad” or “tight, man”, but I got all three of these, and more, over the length of the day. Well done, Tesco!

Lunch was a rather weird, but tasty combination of Chicken and Apple sausages, pancakes and scrambled eggs. Then I was back out on the street to take a few more pictures.

My favourite shot of the day (which you can see here) was not taken at the parade but down a side street near Mo’z Cafe. It’s a simple image but it appeals to me more than anything else I shot today.

Returning to my hotel room around 13:30, I started to edit the pictures. I was amazed that for the following hour and a half, the parade continued along the end of the Fifth Street – it was huge. 10:30 until 15:00!

I watched the first episode of Breaking Bad and it looks to be a good show, and then went out for dinner at Lori’s Diner (sweet potato fries – to die for!).

I’ve uploaded five short videos in the post before this one – here’s the link: Drummers, Cable Cars and Vistas – check it out.

And the link for the rest of today’s shots: San Francisco Day Six – a Flickr set

Thanks for reading this far! Alcatraz tomorrow 😀

Drummers, Cable Cars and Vistas

As mentioned yesterday, I’ve included five short videos in the post. The first, above, is of the Powell to Fisherman’s Wharf cable car at night. The noises are mainly the sounds of the gears and the brakes.

The videos aren’t of great quality, but are meant to give you a flavour of what a photograph will struggle to convey.

The next one was taken from a look out in the Blue Mountains near Blackheath, Australia. It’s a great spot!

Streetcars are a really cheap way to get around San Francisco ($2 for each trip!). This video was taken from one, and shows a little bit of the Embarcadero and the Sea Princess liner at Pier 35

Next; two drummers work together to garner tips from the line for the cable car at the Powell/Market turntable.

Finally, the best street drummer I’ve seen here, and he was certainly the best organised.

I’ll be posting today’s photographs of the 2012 San Francisco Gay Pride Parade later.

Excitement And Other Things

My day started well at Mo’Z Cafe with this delicious croissant filled with scrambled egg and ham, and it was washed down with a bucket of decent coffee. I even got a window seat! Mo’z was packed. Anyhow, once I’d finished breakfast, I walked down to the Embarcadero as my knee was feeling ok. There is a knick-knack type of market there every day, but as it was Saturday, it was twice as big as normal. I watched a drummer guy with his set of buckets etc – the biggest set I’ve seen here, and he was pretty good. Big crowd around him too.

Just after crossing over the main road to the outdoor fresh food market, I was busted taking a picture of a woman’s hair, although it *was* pretty striking. She didn’t say anything though!

It was an outstanding day, weather-wise. Sorry about that, to all my pals in Ireland, where I believe it’s like the “end of days” at the moment. Here’s one to cheer you all up:

These folk were enjoying a free concert of Hispanic music in Yerba Buena Gardens – and they had free wifi too!

I digress. The excitement came when I was enjoying a lunchtime coffee in the Starbucks beside Pier 5. Two people ran into the Starbucks shouting “call 911, there’s a homeless guy out here going crazy”. The Blipper in me jumped off my seat…but I hadn’t finished my coffee, so I climbed on again. By the time I’d finished, he was nowhere to be seen, but the cavalry had arrived in the form of two SFPD officers (with a shotgun – seriously!). I watched as they took off up the pier behind the Marketplace and waited like a good Blipper for the perp to be dragged out in cuffs bleeding profusely from a gaping wound in his chest. But they couldn’t find him. I snapped them walking past me with the shotgun, by now strapped to the back of the smaller officer. They were then joined by a cyclist officer and one of the ladies who called them out. I meekly asked if I could take a photo of them and Officer Elgreth agreed (L). Here it is.

That was about as exciting as it got, today, although I did watch a patrol of twelve Guardian Angels subdue an argument between two homeless people across from my hotel in the grounds of the Old Mint – from my sixth floor window.

Earlier, when I caught a streetcar back towards my hotel, I got chatting with Vernon, the driver. He was a really nice guy who, while talking to me, explained the various controls of the streetcar. He’s been driving streetcars for two and a half years, and before that, normal trains, but he prefers this work. He’s a fantastic advertisement for San Francisco.

Over the last week, I’ve taken a few short iPhone videos which I intend to post tomorrow, including some of the drummer guy mentioned above. They’re worth a look, even to get a feel for the buzz and general noise of the city.

My favourite shot of the day was one I took in Union Square of a father and his very cute daughter feeding the pigeons. It’s included in the Flickr Set – San Francisco Day Five

There are more Ferraris, streetcars and even Guardian Angels in there too – check it out!

Chinatown

My knee played up a little today as I think I may have overdone the walking lark. I started off well by catching a streetcar down to Steuart, but then proceeded to walk from there up to Chinatown, followed by North Beach and I finished off by ending up at Fisherman’s Wharf before taking another streetcar home towards Fifth Street, but of course, I got out early in the hope of finding some new socks, etc. Chinatown was interesting but I preferred North Beach. Apart from the seedier aspects, that is.

I had an average spag bol for lunch in an Italian restaurant. One of who’s staff was a Dublin girl named Aislin – very pleasant and over here for three months working on a J1 visa. Then I visited City Lights, the bookshop which was pivotal for the Beat Generation poets and writers of the ’50s. A great selection of books there – I was tempted by two titles, but if I buy any more books, I’ll need an extra suitcase! NorthBeach is a great spot if you want a decent view of the iconic Transamerica building.

This bar almost tempted me into having a few beers but I realised I had a few hills to climb.

Later in the evening, once I had bought the socks, I went to the Metreon cinema complex to watch Safety Not Guaranteed – a word to the wise; if it doesn’t go straight to DVD, don’t watch it. Awful tosh!

Saturday (which has just started) will be a relatively restful day, as the Gay Pride 2012 parade is on Sunday and my Alcatraz trip is on Monday morning, so I’ll be snapping at both. I think I’ll grab a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle and veg out somewhere.

That’s the plan, anyway!

Today’s best shots: San Francisco Day Four – a Flickr Set