Ann vs. Jason

By Jason

I wanted to share some video from my paternity leave.  A quick apology – this video looks really long, because it’s actually three videos stitched together.  The software for our camera does this by default and I just haven’t had time to monkey with it.

Last weekend Ann, Athena and I drove up to San Francisco to meet up with Tilek and Ralfi from Google Dublin.  I hadn’t seen Tilek since last year when we went to Yosemite.  We spent the day exploring the city.

Our first stop was The Mission, where we wandered around and grabbed some lunch.  It’s an interesting neighborhood, famous for Latin culture and food, colorful murals and interesting hipster shops.  We then drove up to Twin Peaks, one of the best places to see the city:

Our next stop was Haight-Ashbury, famous epicenter of the counter-culture movement in the 1960s.  Now it’s a rather expensive area with a bunch of hippy shops and tattoo parlors.   Athena really enjoyed this part of the trip – the crazy mix of colors was pretty amazing for her.  Tilek and Ralfi were pretty impressed walking down the street – each shop is trying to compete with the others in outrageousness.

Finally we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped at the vista point on the other side.

Athena had an odd reaction to her first experience with wind – she stuck out her tongue and tried to taste it.  This was actually her same reaction to rain, so at least she’s consistent.

I can’t help but a few more cute, but unrelated recent photos here at the end:

By Jason

I just go back from a weekend trip to Yosemite, but I haven’t uploaded the photos yet so that story will have to wait.  In the mean time, I wanted to report on two short trips – our trip across the bridge to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and a hike around the hills south of Mountain View.

The Marin Headlands just north of San Francisco have great views of the city and the bridge.  You can get an idea how high the mountains are from this picture:

Here’s a black sand beach in one of the coves along the Pacific coast here.  The sand was pretty coarse-grained, but the wind was still strong enough to whip it around.

You can see the city across the Golden Gate.

Here’s a view of the bridge from the vista point.

Ann smiles for the camera despite the strong wind.

This wall has bronze plaques that point to various cities and landmarks in the distance.

This photo is from higher up, on the other side of US 101.  We were originally thinking about waiting for the sunset but we got too hungry and the wind got too cold.  I have even more photos in the Flickr set, with more views of the bridge.

This next set of pictures is from a hike I took in the hills just south of Mountain View.  I was actually hiking the trail that leads to the top of Black Mountain – the one mentioned in the city’s name.  I saw this young buck when I came to a fork in the path – luckily he was on the trail down the valley, while I was headed up to the mountains.

Little lizards like this one scurried here and there across the path as I walked.  I managed to get some photos of this particular lizard by moving very slowly and making full use of my camera’s zoom.

At this point I’m pretty sure he’s posing for the camera.

Here’s a view from a high point on the ridge.  The big buildings in the distance are on Moffet Airfield and NASA Ames, including Hangar one, a huge dirigible hangar.  You can see a few small towers in downtown Mountain View in the midground.

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Here’s a photo of Black Mountain from the other side of the valley.

The landscape in the hills and mountains is really amazing, and the light is really good in the evening.

I have more photos in Flickr, including more photos of that camera hog lizard.  Next I’ll write about Yosemite.

By Jason

I promise I’ll write about my parents’ trip out to the Bay Area soon, but I thought I should finish up the last post before continuing. After our jaunt down to Santa Cruz, we spent a day touring sunny San Francisco.

Our first stop was Japantown. J-town has a very different vibe from Chinatown – for one thing, the heart of Japantown is a mall. It’s actually a rather cramped, older-style mall but it has some really great shops. Here’s Ryan in front of the Japanese Italian restaurant we ate at. Ryan and Jessi had fond memories of Japanese Italian food from their trip to Japan and I thought it was quite tasty.

Here Ann and Jessi sit in front of this cool model castle in the mall.

The Peace Pagoda is the most recognizable marker of Japantown. In was built after World War II by the Japanese-American community here. Unlike Chinatown, this area doesn’t seem to have a large incoming immigrant population anymore… it’s telling that right behind me as I took this picture there’s a Denny’s.

We walked around a bit looking for the cable car route down to Fisherman’s Wharf. We probably walked a bit too far – all the way up to Lafayette Park, in fact. It’s one of San Francisco’s many high points and a very popular city park. We also passed a building that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stayed at. When we did make it down to the coast, Jessi was attacked by these pirates.

Next we took a boat ride around the bay. It’s really worth doing if you come to visit here – the skyline of the city is really nice, and I can’t get enough of the Golden Gate Bridge.

We took the cable car back up to Chinatown for dinner. We had some really good food at the Utiopia Cafe, and the owner actually handed me a business card with “yelp.com” written on it. I don’t know if it was because I looked like a geeky sort of guy who might have a yelp account or if it was because we were some of the few non-Chinese in the restaurant and they are trying to branch out. Either way I have been too lazy to review them yet.

I’ll end with this photo of the sunset reflected on buildings just above Chinatown. You can see more photos on Flickr.

By Jason

Ryan and Laura came by about a week ago and we gave them our world-famous, patented tour of the Bay Area.  By which I mean we took the opportunity to go a few places we’ve never been before.

On Saturday we went to San Francisco.  We didn’t have a lot of specific plans, just a list of a few things we’d like to do.  We ended up wandering through Chinatown and eating at a Thai restaurant there.

Next we walked up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower, which has great views of the bay, the bridges, and downtown.  It’s really worth going to, the neighborhood around the tower is built up and down the hillsides with a few parks put in place where the grade is too steep for cars.

From there we decided to walk down to the waterfront and see if we could catch a ferry or take a quick tour of the bay.   This was also definitely worth it, though Fisherman’s wharf is a bit too crowded and touristy.  The boat went out past the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz, with a corny prerecorded “Captain Nemo” narrator.  It’s funny, but he didn’t sound Indian to me.

We took a cable car back up the hill toward Chinatown.  Cable cars are really fascinating, they’re pulled by cables running under the street and have to be turned around by had at the bottom the the hill.

Finally we took a brief walk down Valencia Street in The Mission.  There are some interesting shops and restaurants there, but it’s not really a major destination in and of itself.  We met up with Ahan and Julie for dinner at an Indian restaurant.  Everyone was fascinated by the Bollywood music videos projected on the wall.

You can see more photos on my Flickr page.

I’ll write about our next trip, to Portola Redwoods State Park, a little later.