San Francisco – Days 3 and 4 – 10th and 11th September 2017

Hello again from San Francisco,

Day 3 started bright and early as we made our way to the TransAmerica Pyramid in the financial district to begin a 6 hour walking tour. We were a bit late but we caught up on the first corner to our group of about 30 people. Our tour leader Britt, was knowledgeable and he started off by telling us about a group of cut-throat bandits who were from Australia and known as the Sydney Ducks. Believe it or not, back in the gold rush days, these dudes were the most feared gang in San Fran and ran an area called Sydney Town…sounds quaint – like Old Sydney Town – but apparently they were scary mofos. He showed us around this area before we checked out the Barbary Coast region (named for the African coast) and then we made our way to the cable car stop. This ride normally costs $7 and even the driver was telling us it was a massive tourist trap and it was shit!! Talk about being jaded in your work. Anyway we hung on to the sides like braves as we ascended the streets and made our way up to Nob Hill. (he he…) Britt told us all about the Rail Barons and how pre 1906 (when a huge earthquake and fire levelled the city) these guys had it all. We saw pics of their old houses and saw the new mansions on this land. We also checked out Grace Cathedral and saw how it was modelled on Notre Dame. After that we walked to the beginning of Chinatown.

He gave us a few suggestions for lunch and Jen and I went for Pho in a Vietnamese joint. The décor was tacky and we had to line up as it was full of locals which is exactly what we look for in a Viet restaurant…and the pho did not disappoint my friends. The beef was wafer thin, the noodles, herbs and bean sprouts plentiful and the broth was world class…

We then had a tour of Chinatown which included learning about the Tongs, checking out some back alleys, looking at the fruit and veg, taking pics of exceptional murals, learning about the cheap rent in this area of the city and how all of the Chinese congregate in the park as they can’t afford to live in apartments with kitchens or lounge rooms, and soaking up the vibe. This is the biggest Chinatown outside of China and it was pretty much how I expected it to look. We also went up to the top of a 5 storey car park and took some cool pics of the city. We ended up checking out a cool music club called the Condor, walking through little Italy and then ending up where we started at about 4.30pm…totally exhausted.

By the way – the average rent in San Fran for a one bedroom apartment is about $1000 a week! It is the most expensive city to live in on the planet and the food and drink prices match this…damn this place is dear – even more so than Oz.

That night we had some cheap pizza by the slice and a few drinks back in Cow Hollow before we watched one of the best ever films about Chinatown and San Fran – “Big Trouble in Little China!” Jen had never seen it and as I expected, she thought it was pretty lame!! I, on the other hand loved it, but had forgotten how bad Kim Cattrall was…at least Kurt Russell playing John Wayne was entertaining.

On Day 4 we checked out and grabbed a bus downtown – yeah we’ve got the buses sorted now – to check in to the Hostel. We have a private room, but it is still mad expensive – $260 per night with a shared bathroom!! Yeah we’ll pay our credit cards off when we get home!! We grabbed a train and of course there was track work…did I say we have buses sorted?? Anyway we got transferred to a bus and after 10 minutes we were on the legendary Haight Street for our Flower Power Street Tour. We met our eccentric tour guide Stannous Fluoride (Stan) on the corner of Stanyan and Waller and over the next 3 hours he took us on a 50 year trip of the Haight Ashbury region. Stan was the Man!! This dude was an original, dyed in the yarn freak who had lived in the same rent-controlled apartment on Masonic Street since 1982! He’d even won $32,000 on “Millionaire” and was a walking hippie encyclopaedia. Stan showed us the fire station where “The Summer of Love” was announced 50 years ago in 1967, and how the No. 12 Fire Truck has permission to display the Grateful Dead logo on the side panel. He showed us where the Dead used to live – across the road from the Hell’s Angels. He showed us Janis Joplin’s house and where she used to live with Country Joe. He told us about the Haight Ashbury Food Bank and all the good work that the hippies are still doing, showed us where the Diggers (beatniks) used to hang and lots of other cool hippie stuff. All of this happened in the surrounding streets and he showed us this before we even got on to Haight. He even took us into a friend’s house where he wants to start the Official Hippie Museum – I hope he gets the funds to do so.

The highlight for me was amongst all of the cafes, smoke shops, clothing outlets, bars, and freak shops on Haight was a two storey wooden house that had a butterfly mural on one side and a picture of a dude called Jimi Hendrix on the other. This, my friends was the Red House. Yep, I got to see the house where Jimi’s ex-girlfriend lived and the house that was the inspiration for one of my favourite ever songs. It was never painted red (until now) but apparently some dude was shot there and the blood seeped into the raw floor boards and turned them red – hence the slang name. Tres’ Cool!

I didn’t really know what to expect on Haight Ashbury, but if this trip has taught me anything it’s that wherever there is a free love/relaxed drug policy, the dregs of society are prevalent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a hippie in my core and I’m trying my best to plant trees and live a sustainable lifestyle, but just like in Amsterdam and Christianas there are so many homeless junkies here. San Fran in general has thousands of homeless people but the amount of young and old people who have fried their brains on Haight was overwhelming. From January 2018 weed is totally, 100% legal to anyone over the age of 21 in California, so I’ve no idea what it will be like next time we come back…probably less of a tourist attraction and hopefully there won’t be so many messed up people.

Having said this, the houses and streets that surround this were beautiful and there are so many people who have the true spirit of “hippie” as Stan would say, who are planting trees and gardens everywhere, feeding the homeless and even joining “Earthlawyers” to fight corporate polluters. What I love about the American spirit is that if they want something to happen, it usually does – good or bad – but they are a nation of do-ers, and we like the hippie do-ers!!

After the tour, we thanked Stan and had a great lamb kebab in the Blue Front Café – that has been here since the 60’s. Pretty awesome. We then spent a great hour walking along the street and checking out the clothes in some amazing shops. We ended this walk at the Golden Gate Park at the end of street and this is where the day soured.

We hired bikes to ride through the park but it all went tits up. There was no signage and we got lost a hundred times. We also underestimated how exhausted we were so we returned them early. We did see a beautiful dahlia display and some sort of concert, but all in all in was shit.

We then had a few bracing ales in an Indian restaurant and smashed some veg pakora and poppadums. Once sated we got the bus back to our new digs, checked in and had some more drinks and a burger meal from Jack in the Box. The burger with three cheeses, curly fries and Dr Pepper was absolutely addictive, so thank Christ they aren’t back home…yet.

Tomorrow we have absolutely nothing to do and that’s what we intend to do. Relax, repack and chill before we board the big bird on Monday to come back home.

San Francisco has been interesting. It’s not one of our favourite cities on the planet, but I feel that we understand it a little better now.

I’m glad that we got to meet Stan and that he is keeping the memory of the 60’s alive. I’m also glad I’ve been to Haight Ashbury and whenever I listen to Jimi or the Dead, or Janis, of the Doors or any of the Cali bands, I’ll have a mental picture of where they used to hang. Plus…I got my Chilli Pepper tatt here – so that’s a bonus.

That’s me out…

I will probably write a final post tomorrow and possibly add an album of my favourite lamp posts from this trip.

So bye for now folks…

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