San Francisco Vacation Easter Weekend Cont.

After the tea garden, we walked over to the famous Haight - Ashbury corner where the hippy movement was supposed to have started.

There were some very odd shops around and lots of colorful storefronts to see.

We stopped at a little restaurant I was told about called Cha cha cha and we shared some really tasty tapas.

From sauteed button mushrooms to fried caramelized plantains it was very yummy.

I also knew that the "painted ladies" weren't far away from here, so we set off to find them.

This is a photo that people everywhere recognize as part of San Francisco heritage. They used this photo in the opening credits for Full House and I always remember that and wanting to ride a trolley.

The houses are heritage houses and the owners are required to keep them looking this way.

We walked around quite a big looking for them and the day was such that we kept putting on and taking off our jackets. Hot, cold, hot, cold
We were looking for a washroom in the park and came upon all these shoes that someone was planting flowers in.

Pairs and pairs of recycled shoes, it was very strange and someone was obviously taking care of them.
That night we went to Little Italy for dinner. I love Little Italy! There were tons of restaurants with little outside tables with bread, balsamic and evoo on them. So good! We picked a place that the cab driver said had the best pizza and had some very good thin crust pizza and another really nice bottle of wine.
We then walked around and found a little Italian bakery open late with cappuchino, lattes and we had a dessert. yum!
The next day, I wanted togo to Japantown. The Cherry Blossom festival happened to be going on, which was a good thing because there wasn't much to Japantown without it.
There were Haiko drummers, a cherry blossom princess contest and tons of things to buy and food to eat. The lines to some of the food tents went on forever! They were also selling cold japanese beer.
After this we got a cab down to Ghirardelli Square where I was promised very good icecream by a friend.

Ghirardelli are the chocolate squares and the company is San Francisco based.
The chocolaes were sold all over the place and are good souvenirs, but the icecream was so, so and cost $8! We shared one and were not impressed.

It was Easter weekend though and the lines were ridonculous.

Everyone had their screaming kids too, so Mike and I were pretty happy to get out of there.

We walked down to a part near Fisherman's Wharf and took a nap before we had to walk over to the cruise. We were beat and to be honest, I was sick. I had a head cold and I was not really looking forward to the tour of Alcatraz anymore, but felt a little better after a nap.
We got in line for the tour ship and there were lots of people.

They also took photos of each passengar group with an Alcatraz background that they would try to sell later to the passengers. Mike and I skipped this, but this took quite a bit of time to take all these people's photos.

The night tour was cool, but there are less departing ferry's from the island so you have to be on there for 2 hours minimum! I felt like I was doing time! but only because I was feeling pretty miserable and it was a pretty chilly night too.
However, the tour was really cool. The time did go by fairly quickly. You put on this tape player sort of thing and it directs you around the prison and shows you points of interest.
This is from the inside of a solitary confinement cell. Of course the door is open, but the doors were very thick steal and the inmate would be in complete darkness.

Here is what one of the normal cells looked like.

After the tour was over we went back to our hotel and I climbed into bed and got some sleep. We had a morning flight and were back in Vancouver in the afternoon.

Chris kindly picked us up a the airport and we went home and saw our puppies. He had done a great job of looking after my babies. Well that was San Francisco. It does not beat Vancouver. I'm not a fan of the hills and wind and the buildings are all older and there are no condos. The rents are crazy too and that is from coming from someone who lives in Vancouver, so it is pretty bad. Anyway, nice city to visit, but don't think I'd live there.

San Francisco Vacation Easter Weekend

This Easter, Mike and I went to visit San Francisco. I'd never been there, it is a good weekend destination for us as it is so close. We got a great seat sale on it too so it seemed like a good destination. We also considered it as one of the only places in the states we might consider moving to. However after going, we still don't feel it beats Vancouver.

We stayed at the Palace Hotel which I got a great rate on at hotwire.com. I recommend it to everyone! Great deals!

When we got there, we did our usual thing of just
wandering around our hotel's neighborhood. We were very close to Union Square so lots of things to see. There were the usual street performers, but here was something new. A rat on a cat on a dog! The dog was slowly walking down the street and his master had a plastic container he was collecting change and bills in. I'd never seen anything like it. All animals looked well cared for and well fed and the cat and the rat seemed to really be trying to take a little nap.

The below is Union Square. It is basically a


physical square with many nice stores surrounding it. Macy's, Sax Fifth Avenue and Tiffany and Co. to name a few. Mike and I found again that in this neighborhood that you could throw a stone in any direction and hit a Lacoste, a Coach or a Bebe, but you had to walk a while to find something to eat.

The flower were particularly nice in Union Square.

For dinner the first night we wen't to John's Grill.
It was within walking distance of our place and

looked busy inside and the menu was decent looking so we went in. It was very good. I had a sole dish that was really good with lots of veg and we ordered a bottle of wine that was one of the cheaper ones on the menu and it was a great cab sav from 2005. You'd never get it in Vancouver or Fredericton on a restaurant menu for that price. ("Irony", try it out if you like)

The place has been around since 1908 and is very classic looking inside with old pictures of famous people who visited it in it's hay day.

Below Mike is standing beside a trolley. We didn't ride one as I had when I was there with web 2.0 conference and Mike wasn't interested.

I recommend it at least once though. It is very cool the way
they work and the work the driver does to brake and















turn. Also above is a turning station. People gather around to take pictures of them turning. We got to see what the round house that is near us used to be used for for the big trains.
Since it was Easter Weekend there were many windows with all the chocolate displayed. This from a Swiss chocolate maker was one of the more elaborate.
San Francisco has some hills. Man! We walked from our hotel to Coit Tower and there were some serious hills involved. Our conversation the whole way was basically the disadvantages of the hills. You'd be exhausted bringing groceries home. You couldn't ride a bike in this town for sure. If you tripped walking in heels you could fall and just tumble forever before you could stop yourself.
So this is Coit tower. We didn't pay to go on a tour up it, but we did go in and walk around a bit. There were all these colorful murals inside about the history of the city. Outside were great views of the city.


You could see Alkatraz (photo with stars and stripes) and the Golden Gate bridge.
Here I am by one of the murals. Also it is extremely windy in San Fran! Mike and I look really windswept in almost every photo.

Here you can see the Golden Gate bridge and also Lombard Street to the left which is know as the crooked street.
After Coit tower, we took a bus to Pier 39. The transit in San Fran seems extremely cheap compared to Vancouver.
Pier 39 is a bit like a fair ground. There is a merry go round, a bungee bouncer ride for kids and tons of fried seafood, treats and places to have a beer. There is also a lot of shopping. You can get fresh saltwater taffy, a rainbow of bath salts or visit the Giradelli chocolate outlet that is there.
There were also fantastic fresh waffle cones and the smell was intoxicating. I couldn't decide between a cone, fresh mini doughnuts or a fresh pretzel for dessert after my popcorn shrimp for lunch.

Also at Pier 39 are the sea lions. They've constructed wharfs just for them to keep them off the docks for the boats.

The sun there and are quite amusing to watch.
They roar at each other and knock each other off when sunning.

I counted about 120 on the wharfs and I knew there are probably quite a few in the water hunting as well.

Quite a population!

We also went to the conservatory of flowers. It is a big green house with a lot of beautiful flowers inside.















We also took a walk by the Japanese Tea Garden, but decided we had seen enough plants for the day.

I'm going to finish this post in a second listing as we did a lot!

To be continued and still to see: Haight-Ashbury, The Painted Ladies, Little Italy, Japantown and the Cherry Blossom Festival and Alcatraz!

San Francisco Web 2.0 - from c# web developer pov

This week I attended a conference for Web 2.0 in San Francisco. http://www.web2expo.com/webexsf2009 @w23 on Twitter.

Web 2.0 is a term to describe the perceived second generation of web development and design that aims to facilitate communication, information sharing and colloboration on the web.

As a c# web developer and manager , it is important for me to understand how concepts like social-networking sites, blogs and wikis can be leveraged and the technologies used to create them. I was also stunned by the graphically rich applications that can be created by technologies such as MS Silverlight.

These technologies are becoming essential for larger companies and many professionals.

The conference was held in the Moscone Center and it was huge. I was there for 3 days and I digested so much information it was fantastic.

There were sessions from leveraging facebook, blogger, wikis, mobile devices etc. This is a great time for net web developers and everyone who is part of net web design.

I'd been hearing a lot about Twitter, but didn't yet have an account. I now do and my handle is @agezna if you want to look me up. I'm twittering away!

One of the companies there is actually the one doing the VANOC site: http://www.vancouver2010.com

I was surprised to see the site posted in one of the seminars done by CoreMedia http://www.coremedia.com/ as I'd actually just used it recently to check out my hockey tickets.

I didn't get too much of a chance to see the city, but I did get to go out for a nice dinner at a restaurant called NOPA http://www.nopasf.com/


that we will likely try again when we go next week. Thanks to the lovely lady I went with, I also go to go to a great concert with a few of her friends which was very fun.

With the band there was a stilt walker dancing in through the crowd and an artist on stage who was painting on canvas from start to finish and we were able to see the progression of her piece as
the night went on.




It was such a coincidence that Mike and I were going for vacation for Easter and then came this opportunity to see this conference. I was able to get my bearings and get some great ideas for when we go.

I'll be navigating around the city like an old pro. I'll have lots of pictures of the city itself when we go. We're going to visit Alcatraz, ride the trolleys (which I did get to try when I was there), visit Golden Gate Park and get down to Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39. San Fran seems very similar to Vancouver.

The people are very open and fun and there are lots of great places to eat and fun things to do.

Although these are not the true "Painted Ladies" that I also want to visit, it is similar architecture and I really got a feel for the dips and hills that make up the city's landscape while riding on the trolley.

The weather was nice, but windy and cold one evening. Next week, I'll be blogging about San Francisco again except from a tourist's perspective. Good night for now.