Chinatown (and a few randoms)

Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still. - Chinese Proverb

My friend lives within walking distance of San Francisco's Chinatown - so we went down there to explore one day.  Wow.  I must say, I have been few places more foreign to me than the Chinese dried fish market.  We tried to embrace it, I promise.  In the end though, it was disgusting!  It smelled like rotting seafood and the things they sell in there are crazy!  Hey though, at least we attempted to bridge a cultural gap.

This was pretty cool.  More than one building down there had giant artwork on the side of it - it was nice.

Fresh food market = good.

Dried seafood market = scary!

Cuttlefish anyone?

On the left: petrified and coated deer tail or something
On the right: deer antlers. They are only $88/piece - get yourself some!

Hardened cow vagina?  No really...we have no idea what this is.

So in the spirit of embracing the culture, we bought some dried fruit at the dry market.  I think we bought a prune, lemon, kumquat and ginger.  All of it tasted like ass.  When I went to taste one that he had already tried, he smacked it out of my hand to save me!  We thought the pigeon would like it - but even he left it alone.

I took this later (at least an hour later) when we passed by it again.  Completely untouched by even the birds.  That's a pretty sure sign it was completely gross.

So the next few pictures are not really from Chinatown...but they are just randoms from the city and I don't feel like making an entire blog post for just a couple of random pictures.

This is Lombard Street...which is the most crooked street in the world.  I got to drive down it!

The prize for most demented shop window goes to...this store.  I took five pictures of the window - that's how weird it was.

The prize for best street sign alliteration...right here!

This was just plain funny.  I do love copious amounts of garlic!

Tailgating at the Stanford homecoming game!  Very good fun! (Don't worry, I wore Black and Gold [though we lost that day]!)

So my friend was working on a new artwork in the Haight area of SF while I was in town.  He finished it the day before I left town - so on my way out (at 6am) I drove by and snapped some pictures.  This is not his piece, but is on the wall next to it.  Very lovely.

Here is his piece.  I think he told me it measures about 9'x9'.  Helping to beautify inner city walls...one piece of art at a time.

Officially the end of the San Francisco blog series.  I really enjoyed my time in this city.  It has definitely been a highlight of the trip.  I had some amazing food, hung out with amazing people, saw some very impressive art and got to cheer on the Giants in their NLCS games.  All in all, I could not have asked for a better SF experience.  Thanks for everything San Francisco!