Well, much to Rick’s and my disappointment, the Literary Tour never happened. That is to say that we dashed over to City Lights Bookstore and waited outside at precisely noon, just as the website directed us to do, and the tour guide never showed up! We went inside the bookstore to inquire and the surly cashier said in his monotone blase voice, “Sometimes the tour guy shows up, sometimes he doesn’t.” End of conversation. We waited patiently for another 15 minutes, meeting other literary tour hopefuls, and then we gave up.
On to other boppin’-around-san-fran adventures shown through the photos below. We had an amazing day and must have walked over 6 miles yesterday. Last night, the whole city was alive and humming as it was the Chinese New Year’s Parade. Dragons everywhere to celebrate the Year of the Dragon! We had one heck of a time trying to figure out how to get back to our hotel as the parade drew thousands of revelers and the main road leading to Sutter Street (where our hotel is located on lower Nob Hill) was blocked off for the parade! Pure madness, pure excitement. By the time we made it back to our hotel, we were ready to REST.
City Scape: first photo of the day
Pigeons and Fountain: United Nations Plaza Civic Center (near the Art Institute)
Brighter Faster: Hayes Valley neighborhood (a delightful place to be after walking through the sketchy parts of Market Street)
Public Wall Art: Hayes Valley
Beautiful San Francisco homes: viewed from Alamo Square Park
Victorian houses as seen from Alamo Square Park
National AIDS Memorial Grove at Golden Gate Park
Memorial Stone: many of such stones grace the memorial park...very moving and poignant
Koi in the Japanese Garden (we spent a bit of time here after we had tea in the Hagiwara Tea Garden)
Pine agaisnt Sky
Buddha: Japanese Garden
Koi in Pond
Koi (Japanese carp)
