Day 3. Time For an Adventure!

Me and Mum start the day off by having a nice sleep in till about 11:30, after having a shower and getting ready to leave, we go out into town and go to the information center in the Westfield Shopping Mall, which is about 10x bigger than the ones in New Zealand!!! and we bought two City Passes which allow us to go to different places and save money!

After we bought that, we went up into the mall and found a nice Adidas shop where I managed to get a jacket and some Skins, I wanted to stay but Mum wanted to go out and explore (sad face) but it was OK, we then found our way out the huge mall and caught two buses to get our way to Pier 39.

Me and Mum walked around the Piers, we walked into the Aquarium and took some photos of the first floor, but the best part was level 3 where we got to walk through a tunnel which went under-water and many fish and sharks and other marine life animals were there to greet us.

After we had our amazing journey through the aquarium, we stopped at the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch. It is an amazing cafe with lots of old photos of previous rock bands such as Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Who,  Nirvana etc. Along with the memorabilia, the food is quite good but I especially liked the Strawberry Lemonade which Mum will know about... They also have an amazing shop where we bought some gifts for my family back home in NZ!

                  B.B. King's guitar







After our time in the Hard Rock Cafe, we got some tickets to the Rocket Boat which was very good, besides the bit where we got wet! but it also gave us a nice view over the city and at the time of day we were on the boat, the fog was just starting to roll over San Francisco. We also got a chance to see the AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, the Bay Bridge and Alcatraz.

After our voyage through San Francisco Bay, me and Mum watched a 60-year old woman who was doing a circus show. She got a 5 year old boy up on the stage and gave him an instrument that was sort of like a kazoo, she then got him to move his arms around and play the kazoo-like instrument at the same time, very funny as his multi-tasking skills were not the best. She then played with fire, and got two men to hold a pole on their shoulders while she juggled bowling pins on it! Very cool.

We then left Pier 39 and walked up and around San Francisco until we came upon a cable car stop. We waited for about 5 minutes until the next cable car came along. We hoped on and I was lucky enough to get the inside of the car while Mum got the outside and was clinging for dear life when another cable car came zooming along side us.

So that concludes our 3rd day in San Francisco, talk again tomorrow afternoon.

Dylan

Day 3. Out in the tourist town!

This is one cosmopolitan city. Dan said yesterday that 60% of those who live here were not born in California, let alone in San Francisco. As well 60% of those who called the city home in 1992 no longer live here. It's difficult to find a local in the tourist areas that's for sure - everyone is asking directions of each other and none of us know where to go! Even a woman from Las Vegas I spoke to on the cable car today said it felt more touristy than Vegas.

Well, I don't know about that but thank goodness for the service providers! From the mall shop assistants to bus drivers to attraction ticket sellers, nothing is a problem (even as many of them are also not from here and don't always know the answers either!). Even so, this has been the heart of SF for us today - as well as trekking the streets and trawling the mall (where Dylan has a newfound passion for buying clothes, sigh!), we have queued into the aquarium, filled our stomachs at the Hard Rock cafe, been strapped into the Rocket Boat, rejuvenated with caffeine and chocolate cake and squeezed into (or clung onto in my case) the cable car, and all with a no-problem attitude.

A happy day!

Denise

Day 2 Outputs and Outcomes

As Dylan says, summertime in San Francisco is full of juxtapostion. From the masses of tourists and their many shopping bags to the street dancers and preachers, the cheque cashers and fast, flash cars. Nothing is done by halves- coffee is HOT, lunches are l a r g e, conversation is generous and hills are higher on the way home (hence short stop in park :-)). 


As well as City Hall, we saw the incredible Public Utilities Building today:

Only opened a few weeks ago, it will use 60 percent less water than the average 13-story office building because most of that water will be recycled for nonpotable uses at the site, running through a system of underground tanks and artificial wetlands that cleans and clarifies whatever is flushed down toilets or washed down drains. It hasn't come cheap but also has its own wind turbines and a stunning screen up the side. Very cool!

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2012/06/more-green-water-systems-might-be-tap-sfpuc#ixzz1zFDYrRFQ

Thanks to Dan for an enlightening conversation - Dan epitomised 'heart' for us today. As he said over lunch,"[the artist] Christo has always said that the real tangible art for him is not the art itself but bringing the people together around the collective vision and all the getting consensus and working together in a cooperative way... it is all about the method, and building a culture." 

It will be interesting to see how that plays out in terms of public utilities delivery (outcomes) from the new building (output) in San Francisco.

Now, apparently, we are off to the local diner... food is clearly another way we are experiencing San Francisco's 'heart'!

Denise

Day 2: Exploring San Francisco

Mum and I started our day by going to our little french hotel's resteraunt for breakfast. I scoffed down some french toast with maple syrup, mum managed to eat her scrambled eggs (hehe). We went back to our room and we both had a shower, got dressed then headed out into town.


We walked to the shops and we found a Levi's and I got some clothes. Mum got a pair of jeans for my brothers. Luckily for us, Levi's was having a sale, and we managed to save quite a bit. 


Mum and I then went for a walk to the City Hall in Downtown San Fran for her meeting with the Director of the Neighborhood Empowerment Network (NEN), Daniel Homsey. Walking there was OK but the thing I enjoyed most about our walk was the view of the City Hall. It was huge and beautiful, such an awesome view. We also had a small market just in front of us and homeless people gathered in the bottom right-hand corner. 

After drooling over how amazing the City Hall was, we went through a little security checkpoint and I forgot to put my iPod and wallet in a tray and I got bleeped so that was fun... After that, we managed to find Dan's office and we left our stuff there so we didn't have to lug it around. We then left to get some lunch at a nice little Chinese resteraunt. Half way through our meal, Mum and Dan decided to start their meeting so I just played on my iPod for about an hour or so. After their meeting, we went back to Dan's office and grabbed our stuff, he then gave us a T - Shirt each which was pretty cool.


We then went for a walk around town, went through some shops, only thing I bought were two chocolate sardines (they were rich!) from a candy store called Miette. We walked through the Tenderloin and there is a lot of druggies and homeless people there! But not only in the Tenderloin, throughout San Francisco as well. We found a Nike store that was named Nike Town, and it was big. It had 5 levels all packed with Nike gear. But, yet again, I didn't buy anything.


We had a quick stop at a nearby park, then slowly walked to our hotel room. On the way, Mum just had to get something that was close to groceries so we stopped at a little shop down the road from our hotel, which was fine except for the part where my feet were killing me.


Oh might I add that there are so many nice cars around here. I saw at least two Ford GT500 Mustangs, one a convertible, a Maserati, a Ferrari and so many Dodges, basically all of them are giant 4WD. 





Well, that concludes my 2nd day in San Francisco! 


Will write again tomorrow afternoon!


Dylan

Day 1. San Francisco 'heart'

Well folks, Dylan and I landed in San Francisco today ready for a month of exploration! We left our beautiful Auckland by night, already missing those who we left behind but pretty excited about what is ahead too :-)

We won't dwell on the discomfort of economy class, maybe 3 hours sleep and the queues that took nearly 2 hours to get through at customs here (thank goodness for Whittakers hokey pokey chocolate!). Instead, we are thinking about the 6 cities and tens of thousands of kilometres that we'll experience over July! Woohoo!!


We are here to have a lot of fun and also to explore community led development and how that is evolving here in various fields, including how it might be changing 'how things are done around here' (thanks to a Winston Churchill Fellowship). We will meet with over 30 different people, starting tomorrow with Dan Homsey here in San Francisco. 


Dan is Director of the Neighbourhood Empowerment Network which arose from a dialogue between the San Francisco City Hall and community members about ways for government to better partner with them. The NEN is a coalition of residents, community organisations, NGOs, academic institutions and private and government agencies with a vision that everyone has the right to live in a safe, clean, healthy, inclusive and economically resilient community. Pretty impressive! The NEN mission is not to create these communities for residents, but to work with them as they do so. The NEN has been around for about 5 years now so Dylan and I are going to check out how they have been working, what they have learn and what they think the most significant changes they have contributed to are. More tomorrow...


Today the big excitement has been getting here and staying awake (not very successfully!). Not the most intrepid of days I know but we did negotiate the noise of Chinatown where we were offered the opportunity to buy illegal fireworks - little bangers like the Double Happys and Tom Thumbs of old were being let off in the busy street! 

Apart from that encounter, Chinatown is pretty much a tourist mecca these days, although with some interesting Banksy-inspired graffiti...

We are hoping to experience a little bit of the North American heart while we are here, and judging by the conversations I've already had in preparation for the visit we expect to come across some very strong ones! The idea is that Dylan will blog his discoveries here as well as me, so it's reasonable to assume that you will see some quite different interpretations of what 'heart' means...we also welcome your thoughts and questions (and blogging tips too!) :-). 


Meantime, I may have to wake Dylan and head out to explore the co-called French quarter of SF at night before I start looking for the Whittakers again!
 
Denise