Cali Coast Day 7 Part 1

Continued from Cali Coast Day 6 Part 2.

Another lazy start to the day. We wanted to keep yesterday easy and slow, didn’t happen. We shall try to do the same today, but we’ll probably end up walking around all day.

Didn’t make it out until around noon. The weather is cooler today, there is cloud cover, and I want to say, it’s chilly. I spent the whole day yesterday carrying around my jacket instead of wearing it, I decided to forgo my jacket today, wearing just polo shirt and jeans. I walked out on the street, debated about whether to go back and get my jacket, then decided against it. I would spend the next hour bitching about how I was cold.

How they do it in SF. Cabby driving around with the rear hatch open.

The long lines for cable car at the turnaround. Just go up a couple of blocks, where there is no wait.

Down into the darkness again.

But not to the dreaded BART this time. The BART makes your adult children have diaper blowouts.

We’ll be taking the Metro, SF’s subway/street car.

This is more like it. It’s not as dreary as that god forsaken BART.

We traveled underground for a while, then we went above the surface—operating as a street car.

Someone pulls the ‘request to stop’ cable. The stop light comes on, none of the doors open. People are standing around, getting nervous. The train shuts down, lights go out, then powers back up again. The doors do not open. I can see panic in some people’s eyes…What’s going on? Why are we stopped here, and why are the doors not opening?

I think the doors are stuck shut. We are stuck in the middle of the street, and the doors are stuck shut and no one can get off the train. There’s confusion, frustration, and panic all around. Nothing happens for about 5 minutes. Finally, another Muni worker shows up from the outside, uses a key, opens the door and comes into our car. He says that he’ll get all these doors opened so we can get out.

So, does this mean we need to all exit this car? What’s going on? No one knows what’s going on. All of a sudden, on the train loud speaker, the conductor comes on and he’s yelling in the shrill panicked voice, “I can’t get the doors open. I don’t know how to get the doors open. The doors won’t open, I don’t know what to do.” He’s more panicked than any of us here. He was talking to another passenger, but funnily, also accidentally turned on his mic so that everyone can hear him talking. The mic would go off, then it would come back on, and it’s the conductor again saying “I don’t know how to open the doors, it won’t open. I don’t know what to do.” We all laugh because this happened like 5 different times.

Finally, all the doors open, but no announcements were made. Do we all exit? What do we do. Some people leave, then more people leave, then it was just me and RH, the last two people sitting down. Fine, I guess we’ll get up and leave too…

Now what? We just got dropped off on some random street in SF…

We were in the second train car, and this is the first train car. The doors are still closed, and people are still inside.

Finally, they were able to get the doors open, but the stairs wouldn’t extend down.

The Muni workers helping passengers get off the train. Eventually, they tell us that the train has been taken out of service. But, they don’t tell us where to get on another train….We are not at a train stop, we are just at some random spot, somewhere in SF.

Our train leaves, and the locals on our train scatter every direction towards other transportation options. Two older lady tourists asks a nearby bus driver how they would get to Golden Gate Park(where we are also headed). The bus driver is Fucking Rude to them, and doesn’t tell them shit. So rude that the old ladies called him out on it. I guess we are on our own. I pull out my iPhone, looked at the station maps, then figured out that we need to walk a couple of blocks to get back to another N train station.

Here comes the next train.

Back in business. That was an interesting little detour. Muni people suck. They don’t tell you anything. I tried asking what’s going on, and they only tell you to leave the train. Then you are on your own with no help at all. All they had to do was to point two blocks away, and tell us to go back there to wait for the next N train. What’s so hard about that?? Assholes.

Reached our stop by Golden Gate Park. We like this neighborhood.

Park Chow, our lunch spot.

Some energy for the day.

Half of an artichoke appetizer. Looks awesome, tastes mediocre. Not what we were expecting.

The actual lunch was really good though!!

We socialized a little with two ladies sitting next to us, mother and daughter. I complained about how SF people are rude. They were, nice, so they wanted us to know that not everyone in SF are rude.

If you work here, you need to wash your hands before returning to work. But if you don’t speak Spanish, then it’s ok that you don’t wash your hands.

Walking into Golden Gate Park.

Got three things to get done here, Japanese Garden, de Young Museum, and then Academy of Sciences. These are the only things on our schedule for the day time, and all next to one another.

de Young.

Japanese Garden.

Entering Japanese Garden.

KL points. MOSS!!!!!

Look! It’s MOSS!!!! I LOVE MOSS!!!!!!!!!!

RH also LOVES MOSS!!!! We found one thing we have in common!!!

More MOSS!!!!! Imagine this. Jellyfish tank, then next to it, moss garden!!!!

Moss!!!!!!!!

Don’t fall.

I am number one!

I am boring.

My socks for some reason kept on slipping down into my shoes today. By the way, halfway through lunch, the sun came out, and the weather is perfect. I made the right choice in not bringing my jacket!

Coil bike rack.

Now, onto de Young.

One ill fitting panel.

Academy of Sciences sits right across de Young.

Cantilevered roof.

This was really awesome. Polished metal cylinder in the middle, and then the artist worked around the circle pad, cutting out the pieces until his own self portrait appeared onto the cylinder.