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 Today we went to the Golden Gate Park and saw a couple of the cultural centres there. We took the MUNI bus 30 down Stockton (from Broadway) to Market St. We transferred, using the same tickets, to bus 5 (Fulton) and travelled some distance to Fulton and 8th. From there, we walked to the California Academy of Sciences.
| Vanessa |
I had heard somewhere that the best way to get to know a city is to take its public transport. I think this is true. When you travel and visit tourist spots, the people you see there are other tourists or people working in the tourist industry. On the bus, we got to see a part of normal San Francisco people's lives. The bus also took us on a route through the city and suburbs that we would not have thought to travel if we had gone by car. |
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The Golden Gate Park is a huge area made up of a mixture of cultural centres and gardens. Chris had been there before on a previous visit and knew that it was worth seeing. |
| Chris |
We took some photos of a fountain in the Academy's grounds. There was a queue waiting to go into the museums, and after a bit of a wait, we eventually got through. (Time: 11.40am Entry fee: $7.50 each.) |
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In the main foyer of the Academy's Natural History Museum was a large skeleton of a dinosaur. As interesting as that was, we had decided to start at one end of the museums and work our way around. Our first stop was the gem collection. We were most impressed with minerals like malachite, lazurite, iron pyrite (its almost perfect cubic shape), a volcanic rock that looks like hair and a huge hollow tube of amethyst (at least 50cm in diameter).  The next exhibit we wandered through was the California Wildlife section. It contained lots of stuffed animals. Also containing lots of stuffed animals was the African section. This had a few impressive cats on display - the cheetah and leopard in particular. |
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Our last display before lunch was the Earthquake Theatre. The theatre room had a section of the floor that could move to simulate an earthquake. It wasn't much, mostly two dimensional with no real vertical motion. There was a short film and the shaking was synchronised to various portions within. On the way to get our lunch, we popped briefly into the Academy Stores and bought a very pretty mineral bead necklace (for Aunty Joyce). |
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Lunch at the museum cafe was something we regretted later. It wasn't the best quality and it was just another reason to avoid food from these types of venues, if you can help it. The Morrison Planetarium was next on our list of things to see. We were on time for the "Into the Depths" show. Vanessa had to leave the planetarium soon after the show started, feeling unwell as her lunch had disagreed with her. Unfortunately she couldn't get back in, so I watched the rest of the show without her. Like I normally do in planetariums, I fell asleep for a while - the comfy laid-back chairs, dark "starlit" environment, etc - was very soothing. The final section in the Academy we saw was the Evolution exhibit, displaying fossils from the age of dinosaurs, etc. There were some good "life size" model reconstructions. |
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 It was after 3pm by the time we left the museum and shortly thereafter, lunch began to disagree with me as well. We walked past the Temple of Music and then went into the Japanese Tea Garden. (Entry at 3.30pm for $3.50 each.) This garden has quite an interesting history, as well as being quite beautiful. Both of us became snap happy and took lots of photos, even though the light level wasn't the best. The scenery was lush and green and moist from recent rain. It was a very pleasant and serene place, although this was tested by the numerous tourists. Vanessa was delighted to see her first squirrel there. It was a lot smaller than she thought squirrels would be. The delicate grey animal was foraging in the leaf litter under some bushes. Unfortunately it was too dark to take any photos. |
| Vanessa |
For some silly reason, I had always thought that squirrels were the size of a small cat. I was surprised to see that it was only a bit bigger than a large rat. Its tail wasn't as densely furred as I had expected, either. The little creature looked so fragile, but it was full of energy as it burrowed into the leaf litter and it was gone in a flash when some noisy tourists walked by. |
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I really liked the Tea Garden. Every twist and turn in the paths led to something new and interesting to look at - miniature trees, lazy streams, mossy stepping stones and a wooden temple. We didn't explore every part of the garden, but we did see most of the features from the paths we took. |
| Chris |
Our legs and feet were protesting a lot now, especially Vanessa's. We walked to the south side of the park (Lincoln) to catch the 71 bus back to Market Street. From the bus we went to Walgreens, a general store, and bought some foodstuffs, including coffee and teabags. The next shop we went to was CompUSA (the computer shop we were looking for yesterday) and we purchased two photo mouse mats, a gamepad and, in particular, a decent mouse for Vanessa, since the touchpad on the laptop is slow and annoying to her. Another short walk to Kearny street and, again using ticket transfers, we took the 9X bus back to our inn. |
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Dinner tonight was just across the street at the New Sun Hong Kong Restaurant. The meals we ordered were superb and consisted of spring rolls, sweet and sour prawns, chicken and cashews and steamed rice. The prawns were very flavoursome. I want more! (Cost: $26.60 plus $4.40 tip.) |
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We retired to our room, watched some Scooby Doo (which was just silly) and updated the journals. I wrote my first postcard to Mum, which I must remember to post sometime. |
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