I made my first trek to San Francisco yesterday. To get there, I drove to Daly City, about 45 minutes from Campbell, then took BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit - commuter rail) to Powell Street, about a 20 minute train ride. BART and I got along well, but when it came time to switch to Muni (the equivalent of the T in Boston), I struggled a bit. You can only pay the $1.50 fare in quarters (it took me 10 minutes to figure this out and where to get quarters) and once you figure out which train you need, they do not announce the stops. For stops above ground, there are no signs even telling you where you are (well, at least not on the N line I took). I even consulted the map on the train, but they don't label all the stops that occur on the map! A gentleman told me at one point that we were at UCSF; the map said 9th and Judah was next, so I got off at the next stop. Turns out I had to walk about 8 blocks until I got where I needed to be because there were 2 more (unmarked) stops between UCSF and 9th and Judah.
My trusty California guidebook proposes a three day itinerary in order to see the highlights of the city, so I picked one of the three options for this go-around, The Golden Gate Park route. The book compares Golden Gate Park to Central Park in New York but I found it to be much nicer, not as bustling. I visited the Japanese Tea Garden (first four shots below), which is quite nice and quite small - not sure it was worth the $4 entry fee since I canvassed the place in under 10 minutes. I enjoyed the Botanical Garden and Shakespeare Garden even more. Both are free to enter, were fairly quiet, and had tons of benches. If I lived in the city, I would be in these gardens all the time.
I also visited the De Young museum, one of the most eclectic museums I have ever been to. It is a mostly contemporary museum and had works from sculpture to photography to textiles to an oil painting gallery on American history. The museum also has an observatory on the 9th floor from which you can see the whole city. The only unfortunate part was that pictures were not really feasible due to the glass!
Outside of Golden Gate Park, I saw some of the surrounding neighborhood (lots of triple decker homes and hills, sort of like Worcester!), had lunch at Park Chow on 9th Avenue, and did a little window shopping in Union Square before boarding the train. I certainly did not want to be lingering in this city by myself at night.
Overall, while I loved the park region of San Francisco, outside the park I was not favorably impressed by the city. It seemed kind of tired, a little dirty, and I just never felt quite safe. Granted, this was just my first trip and I only saw a portion of the city. I will definitely go back but I would much prefer having a companion with me. Or maybe I just prefer cities that are more European in feel!
Japanese Tea Garden
Botanical Garden
Shakespeare Garden: the back wall has all the references to plants that Shakespeare made in his plays. Not sure that they can grow all those plants here though (e.g. hemlock?).
