As I did last year, and several other times in the past, I took a trip to San Francisco for the annual Game Developers' Conference. It was a little later than usual this year, and ended up lining up nicely with my spring break. I suppose that's a good thing, since I already had the time off. However, l probably could have gotten time off anyway, since the conference is work related. So basically I missed the chance at extra time off.
Anyway, I got into San Francisco Tuesday night. I spent all day Monday and Wednesday at GDC. I wrote a bit about GDC in last year's travelogue but I'm not going to do so this year. The reason? There's just not a lot to talk about. I checked out a lot of game development related hardware and software on the expo floor, talked with a bunch of people, and watched the IGF and GDCA award shows. It was interesting for me, but most of you would probably find a write-up rather dull since GDC is the business game conference, not one of the fun ones.
I spent Friday at the conference as well, though it ended a bit early, giving me a few hours to hang out in Japan Town. I've written about Japan Town in the past as well, and it hasn't really changed much since last time so I won't repeat myself. It's a fun place to visit, especially if you like Japanese shops and/or restaurants. Though, thanks to my visits to Honolulu over the past year, I wasn't quite as starved for Japanese culture as I was last time.
Anyway, that all brings me to Saturday, the first of my two free days in the city. I spent the morning attending synagogue but I had a lot of time to kill in the afternoon so I decided to take a long walk. I did the same last year (see that previous link) and ended up visiting some famous locations including Lombard Street and Pier 39. This time, I decided go through a different area. There was some overlap though. First off, I ran across plenty of the city's famous Painted Lady style houses. I also stumbled across Trinity Church, one of a number of neat old church buildings in the city. But for my main route, I went East through Union Square Park (where they happened to be having an art show) the continued on all the way to Pier 1 on the coast. While Pier 39 is the famous one, it's hardly the only pier worth visiting. Pier 1 has a large open area across from it with lots of shops, restaurants, and a rather interesting fountain / water play area. They apparently also have a big farmer's market there on Saturdays (I arrived as they were starting to take everything down). The pier also offered a very nice view of San Francisco's other big bridge (the one no one ever talks about because it isn't painted orange).
From there, I headed north along the coast, eventually reaching Pier 39. Since I was there, I stopped to take a couple photos of Alcatraz and watch the sea lions. I got some pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge as well, but I took some much betters ones on Sunday, so you can see them in that section...
Going south from the pier, I passed through Little Italy. While it's not as obviously different as Japan Town or China Town, it had a lot of really awesome looking cafes and restaurants. Unfortunately, since it also happened to be Passover, I wasn't able to actually eat at any of them on this trip. Hopefully next time...
I also walked through China Town. I had passed by it on my last visit and wasn't impressed, but this time I must have been on a different street or something. It was still kind of dirty and chaotic (like most China Towns), but there were a lot of interesting shops and restaurants and the main road is fairly nice overall.
After that, I went back to my hotel to rest up a bit (see the Random San Francisco comment below). But I did go out to eat after sunset. And, while there are a lot of things I don't like about San Francisco, it's selection of restaurants is pretty awesome. Thai and Japanese places are especially common, but there are many others kinds as well. This time, I decided to try a Indonesian restaurant I'd heard about online called Borobudur Restaurant. It turned out to be a pretty popular place, and totally worth the visit. I don't recall ever having Indonesian food before. Fortunately, they had a special menu item that basically gives you small portions of a lot of their most popular dishes. The spring rolls, chicken skewers with a nutty sauce, and the chicken marinated in a spicy coconut sauce reminded me a little bit of Thai food (though the flavors were noticeably different). There were also some very interesting veggie and tofu dishes and an excellent beef stew of sorts. For dessert, a mix of black rice and coconut milk, but it was unlike any coconut rice I've had before. Creamy with a hint of a chocolate like flavor, and really really good. It was an excellent meal and makes me wish Indonesian restaurants were more common.

Random San Francisco Comment: Hills
This trip confirmed my beliefs that, if you're going to live in San Francisco itself (as opposed to the suburbs), you've got to really love walking up and down hills. Yes, love. Liking it just isn't enough. The main part of the city is built on a collection of hills and moving through the city requires lots and lots of up and downs, many of which are both long and steep. It's great exercise but will really do a number on your legs, even if you're used to lots of walking. Tourists beware. I suppose you could drive everywhere but in such a crowded city, parking is limited so you won't be able to avoid climbing some hills every now and then.

While I was somewhat limited in what I could do on Saturday, I had all day Sunday to do whatever I want. I did look into Alcatraz about a week before but I discovered that the tickets tend to sell out a few weeks in advance (next time, perhaps). However, when I was walking around Pier 39 last year, I saw a sign for self guided bike tours that take you past a number of the city's most notable sights. That sounded so fun, so I headed out to rent a bike. There's actually a lot of bike rental places in San Francisco. After a bit of research online, I settled on Bay City Bike. They have a shop a short distance from Pier 39 so, after waking up and making a quick e-mail check, I headed off. As a side note, I happened to pass another really cool church on the way.
Getting my bike was easy. They had two different models but, with only a few dollars difference, I got the nicer model, a good quality 24-speed. It cost $10 an hour or $40 for the entire day and, when I offered to just pay for a full day up front, the guy gave me $5 off. The bike also included a clear pouch with a map hooked to the handle bars and a lock, which came in handy when I wanted to get off and walk around.
Following the map, I went about four blocks on the regular roads before reaching a bike trail along the coast. The weather couldn't have been better...for the first hour and a half or so at least. After that it could have been much better. But anyway, I passed some more piers and parks, making my way steadily towards the Golden Gate Bridge. But before reaching the bridge, I came across the very impressive Palace of Fine Arts. Set in a park, it was built for an exposition nearly 100 years ago. If you couldn't tell from the first photo, it's a massive structure set in a scenic park in one of the city's nicer areas. There was even a pair of nesting swans there. Being a big fan of old buildings, I really enjoyed walking through the palace.
Continuing on from there, I drew closer to the bridge. See the building beneath it in that photo? It's Fort Point, a Civil War fort created to protect the city's trade routes. It's since been turned into a free museum. There aren't a whole lot of displays, but it's fun to walk through. You can also get some really nice views from the roof. Unfortunately, while I was in the fort, the weather took a turn for the worse and it started raining. Of course, after several days of good weather, it had to rain on the one day when I really didn't want it to. As a side note, Weather.com (which I'm coming to trust less and less) stated there was no chance of rain for at least a few more hours.
But, seeing as my only other option was biking back to the shop, giving up when I'd barely started, and spending the rest of the day in my hotel room, I decided to press on and hope conditions improved. So I backtracked slightly and biked up to the base of the bridge. There are walking and biking paths on both sides of the Golden Gate Bridge, though each side is only open at certain times of the day. Both were open when I arrived up, but the path I was on led me to the far side. I couldn't get a good view of the city from that side, but the views of the coast were pretty nice. You can't really see it in that photo, but there's a light house on that finger way on the end. There's actually an optional part of the bike trail that goes over to it but, with the rain getting harder and harder, I didn't want to add several miles to my route. So I crossed under the bridge the continued east along the coast, finally getting a good view of San Francisco. Got some more good views of the bridge as well. And here's Angel Island. You can actually take a ferry there and bike around it as well.
Despite the rain, the bike route was nice. Aside from the views, there were lots of trees and flowers along the way. Though it eventually changed from a full on bike path to a bike lane on the side of the road (the rest of the route alternated between the two). Fortunately, the rain stopped as I neared Sausalito, the half way point on my planned route. It's a scenic town with nice houses and a main street lined with restaurants, fancy clothing stores, and art galleries. It was time for lunch, so I locked my bike to one of the many nearby bike racks and walked around for a bit. I ended up at a Mexican place and got a rather interesting mix of eggs, corn chips, and different types of salsa. But what was really interesting was dessert. I had parked my bike near an ice cream parlor and they had some very unique flavors. I ended up with guava cheesecake and a mix of date and caramel, both of which were really good.
Now, Sausalito has a ferry station and I could have gone back to Pier 39 from there. And, while I'd initially planned to go farther, with the threat of more rain, I was seriously considering calling it a day. However, I checked the ferry schedule and saw that I'd need to wait over ninety minutes for the next ferry (they only run every couple of hours). I figured that, in that time, I could be most of the way to Tiburon (my planned stopping point), where I'd have a much shorter wait. And, since it wasn't raining at the moment, I figured I might as well continue on. Naturally, it started raining again a few minutes after I left, though it fortunately didn't last too long.
The bike path continued to follow the coast, passing through a marsh, past a bunch of house boats, and near a number of expensive houses on tree covered hills. There were also forests, nice old buildings, and parks. After a couple hours of solid biking, I reached Tiburon. Like Sausalito, it's a small but classy town, with a number of shops and restaurants. Though it had a more old fashioned feel to it than Sausalito did.
From there, I hopped on the ferry for a ride back to Pier 39 (the ferry allows bikes onboard). I was able to get some nice views of Tiburon and the other areas I biked through on the way. The ferry passed pretty close to Alcatraz as well, before reaching the pier and downtown San Francisco. After that, it was a short walk back to the bike shop. All in all, I biked around 17 miles with the entire trip (stops and ferry ride included) taking about 7 hours. It wasn't anywhere near as long as the bike ride I took off the coast of Shikoku in Japan, but it was a lot of fun. The route was scenic and fairly flat, with plenty of interesting places to stop along the way. The flat part was especially nice since this was the first long bike ride (actually, probably the first bike ride of any kind), I've taken since last summer. Between the biking and the walking, I was pretty sore for the next couple of days. It didn't help that I decided to walk to Japan town after the bike ride to get dinner (which required a long walk up a steep hill). Sore legs aside though, it was a great day and gave me a more favorable impression of San Francisco overall, making it a great way to end my trip.

Random San Francisco Comment: A Very "Liberal" City
San Francisco is probably the most liberal city I've ever been to, which can lead to some weird (and sometimes awkward) situations. Last year, for example, I came across a group of naked middle aged men on bikes (ugh...). This time, I couldn't seem to go more than a couple blocks in many parts of the city without seeing (or more like smelling) someone smoking weed. One kinda shady looking guy even offered to sell me some. Though, as far as I know, non-medical marijuana use is still illegal in California. And that's not even mentioning all the crazy homeless people wondering around... Some parts of the city are a whole lot better than others, but if you're going to be in downtown San Francisco, it's essentially guaranteed that you'll run into some pretty weird people.