My 50th Birthday

no big parties, no gifts on the day, no cards (we were away of course) but I did get to go the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It was brilliant and made me realise how much I miss going to the big art shows which I would regularly see in the UK.

On the day they had a major Matisse exhibition and a show on about photographer, Martin Munkacsi,I had never heard of him before but his work was masterful. We also got see some of the other work the Museum currently has. Some of it I have no time for and I suspect the artist said to themselves at the time "wow, I am being paid for this" well at least I hope so anyway. They had 2 Andy Warhol works which I found I was surprisingly drawn to and one Frida which I was surprised to see as I thought everything would be in Mexico at the moment. All in all we spend 4 hours just browsing the art but still didn't see everything. The Matisse exhibition was brilliant and one of the best curated shows I have seen.

After a quick coffee it was off to China Town again as we had barely touch in the day before. Managed to buy myself a small bracelet, gifts for the kids and just generally marvel at the place again.

Once I had completed spending money we had a meal in one of the local restaurants which looked ok. There were some dim sum places but we are way too westernized to trust a place like that . (obviously we will have train ourselves better if we go to Mexico next year.) As we were eating I was able to get a clear shot through window of this tram

After dinner, we managed to hop onto one of the trams going along to make our way to Lombard St, the famous twisting road in SF. We managed to get there just before sunset. On the road below it where numerous cars were park was a sign about how to park as the road is on such a steep incline. I thought it was hilarious!

So that was the end of Day 2 and I couldn't of wished for a better 50th Birthday!

San Francisco was Brilliant! - part 2

We spent most of our time on the first day, investigating the Fisherman's Wharf area and ended our tour at the Fort Mason area.

View from the Hill looking down on to Fort Mason

On our self navigated walking tour, we came across a really great little musuem which displayed old time penny arcade machines. Believe it or not this was one of them.

Penny Arcade Game

It also included a couple of fortune telling machines, just like the one in the Tom Hanks' movie "Big". Of course I couldn't resist spending 50c on one of them. Here is my fortune:

You are keenly critical but

tactful. Your memory is excellent

and retentive - guard against

worry. Take more open air

exercise. Keep smiling

At the end of our walk we managed to find a bus route to take us back to downtown. As we were sitting on the bus it became clear that it would be going through Chinatown, so that was our next port of call.

I have never been to place like Chinatown, it was amazing. It really is a Asian town in the middle of a USA town. It was incredibly crowded and busy with people buying all sorts of what we would think was exotic but no doubt normal food to them. I even saw a fish flapping away as it was to be shown to a customer, the shopper keeper with a cleaver in hand about to sever its head.

A shop window and view from the bus of the main street of China Town.

We walked around for an hour or so, before we returned to the hotel for a much needed rest before dinner. It was brilliant first day.