Santa Cruz/San Francisco

The coast near Santa Cruz is pretty, and I had a fun trip, although it got off to a rough start due to a bit of projectile vomiting. But after that passed, it was fun. The first night, we saw a San Jose Sharks game. In NHL games, they really do spontaneously get in fights (not in college games). The next morning, I was feeling normal, and we initially toured around the Santa Cruz beach a bit.







Heading out of town, we drove along Big Sur, which is possibly the most impressive coastline I've ever seen.
The cows there are even rich, living on expensive ocean-view pastures. I think they're the ones in the "Happy Cows Make Good Cheese" commercials.















Wending our way back north, we take the "scenic" route, which was essentially a pitted dirt road that winds up, up, up a hill, across to another hill, through private property, and right before it joins up again with the highway, we see a spectacular view of Bixby Canyon Bridge (Death Cab for Cutie song, remember?)
Back on the road, we clamber through a free state park....






And finish off at an ancient mission in Carmel. Time to meet Derek's parents for Mexican seafood and margaritas. It was an excellent day.
The next morning, we take a quick tour of Capitola, a cute, little town near Santa Cruz.

These flowers were everywhere:
We end our Santa Cruz segment at the Boardwalk. Yes, I rode the roller coaster, but my eyes were closed most of the time.
On to San Francisco! Derek's parents drive us up there, and we have a really excellent Japanese lunch together, do a little shopping at a Japanese dollar store, and then tour the Asian Art Museum.

That night, Derek's parents head back down the coast, and we have dinner at a Spanish restaurant on Belden Place. This is a miniature version of the Flower Street in Istanbul, except the hostesses trying to entice you to their restaurants here are significantly less pushy than those in Istanbul.



After dinner, we meet up with some old high school friends of mine, Thierry and Choi. I haven't seen them in over 10 years!
We all eventually ended up at a weird bar called Lefty O'Doul's. Divey? Yes. Entertaining? Definitely. The couple pictured below came in, sat down, and placed their own flower arrangement in the center of their table. It was kind of weird. Our waitress never really waited on us, but rather just told us that food was self-serve, and then sat down at her own table and resumed eating.
For our last full day in San Francisco, we go to the Mission district to meet up with Derek's cousin, have lunch at a really good Salvadorean restaurant, and then streetcar-it to the Academy of Science, which has a very impressive rainforest setup, complete with birds and butterflies flitting about. Pictured below is a tree frog.
I told you there were butterflies!
The Academy of Science also houses a pretty cool aquarium with unique vantage points...




...as well as a rare albino alligator.


Traipsing though Golden Gate Park:


After a rest back at our hotel (Hotel Abri--very nice and well located), we take the cable car up to Nob Hill, peek into the Tonga Room ($5 cover charge just to go inside and order a drink? No thank you!), and hike up and down to Russian Hill, were we enjoy the imminent sunset with a couple of saké cocktails at a corner cafe.



We finished off the evening with a dinner in Chinatown, and dessert in North Beach, which I had never seen at night before, and was very lively.

Fun trip!