Spring Break: San Francisco

After finding out that I passed my Block 3 exams, I was able to throw myself whole-heartedly into spring break, which was my first visit to San Francisco.  I also finally got to see Darienne for the first time since we both left the Alt lab.

Very envious of Darienne's sunny afternoon nap spot.

Darienne still had class (who goes to those anyways?) on Thursday, so I headed off by myself to Swan Oyster Depot.  Since I was lazy and slept in some, I ended up not getting to the restaurant till nearly noon.  This turns out to be a mistake and resulted in more than one and a half hours standing outside in line.  When I say restaurant, it is really more of a bar.  There are less than 20 seats inside and a limited amount of fresh seafood.

I was very glad that I did not drink too much water that morning.

The early bird gets the delicious seafood.

Unlike a normal bar, being a girl does not get you priority on seats.

 Still, the wait was more than worth it.  The seafood was very fresh.  I downed some New England style clam chowder because I missed Boston before starting in on a dozen and a half of raw oysters and half a dozen clams.  I think the clams were definitely overshadowed by the oysters, which were excellent.  I didn't even have any room left to try the uni, so a revisit is clearly required.

The prices are also very reasonable.

After that delicious lunch, I wandered around till I hit Japan town, which is recognizable by the fact that street signs start being bilingual.

However, I wasn't really impressed by the neighborhood as much as I expected to be.  There wasn't a clear cohesiveness to the area and it lacked the feel of a busy Tokyo street. That is not necessarily a negative thing, but nor did  the area emphasize a rustic charm.  It just didn't have the same "destination" feel that LA's little Tokyo has.

By the time I returned to Darienne's apartment, I had certainly had my share of walking up and down the hills of SF (especially due to some "special" map reading skills).  However, despite it being one of the warmer days for SF, I thought that there was a nice breeze for most of my walk and really enjoyed seeing a bit of how the city is laid out.

That night, Darienne took me to "Nightlife."  No, not clubbing.  The California Academy of Sciences open their museum doors on Thursday night to the local community for a discounted entrance fee.  There is music, wine, and numerous little exhibits (museum and pop-ups) to explore.

The line for the rain forest was too long, so we ate ice cream instead.

This is one of the moving exhibits.  They looked so life-like!

On Friday, Darienne mysteriously didn't have much to do, and showed me some other sites in SF.  We went to Tartine Bakery, which was AMAZING.  There were sandwiches and cake in the nearby Dolores Park.  I turned down a kind woman's offer for "magic brownies" and got closer to stars than I ever did in LA.  And thus a great afternoon quickly went by.

Although my taste buds disagree, it is a good thing that I do not live close to this place.

Oh my god!  Do you think they are famous (students)?!

 After a stop near the Golden Gate Bridge (required!), we closed the day with dinner at A16.  Classy Italian all the way.  :)  All I can say is that I will definitely be going back!  And next time, I will go even hungrier.