On Valentine’s Day 2009,  couples and singles (and I guess triples) alike joined in the largest, fluffiest, most insane pillow fight I’d ever seen - the Great San Francisco Pillow Fight 2009.  Besides, what better way to say those three little words than with constant beatings in the face with a large rectangular mass of feathers.  Unfortunately, being the tree-hugger I am I decided not to participate in the actual fight because all of my pillows were of the polyester or memory-foam type.  Neither of which are as earth-friendly as feathers strewn about the ground.  Nonetheless, I had a great time watching others enjoy the random acts of violence across the park.

To give perspective on the sheer number of pillow soldiers there, at a few points during the night I do a 360 with my video-cam setting and all you can see are pillows and feathers flying in all corners of the park.  By my estimates, there were 5 kajillion people there - give or take a few kajillion.

Hopefully next year I’ll get to spread the love from face to face to ribs to shoulder to mouth…

For videos and more pics of the fight check the flickr.

Two weekends ago I participated in the SF Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt.  A freaking blast! Even with the cold and the thousands of people that showed up for the Chinese New Year parade that both coincided and cohabitated with the treasure-hunting area.  As we dodged both parade spectator and parader (seriously.. we ran through the parade.. hahaha) we kept our noses to the ground and our minds in constant grind mode as we figured out clues to lead us to the answers we needed to fill our answer sheet.

We were given 3 hours to decipher 17 clues that lead us throughout Chinatown and the surrounding area (roughly a 2 mile area) to find 17 answers that lay about the city.  From a single name carved in cement decades ago by a teenager, to the serial number of a lightpole, we braved the crappy winds among other things just to finish.  We knew we weren’t going to win, I don’t think we even tried to, but we did want to finish.  Along the way we stopped and smelled the roses by stopping into random fudge shoppes for free samples and partaking of new-found treasures hidden in the clues that described to us ‘the best pizza’ in the area as part of the background of a clue.  Treasures within treasures - sweet deal.

We didn’t quite finish answering all of the clues when we turned in our answers as we accidentally smudged a clue marker on our map and skipped it.  Damn! But damn did we have fun.

And here we begin with the list:

1. Learn to play the guitar - I’ve recently begun weekly guitar lessons with a hippie-ish mandolin/guitar player who lives in the MIssion district.  I can now successfully play “This Land is our Land” and strum the chords for “Green Day’s - Good Riddance”.
2. Take up rock-climbing - Wednesday nights at Mission Cliffs.
3. Read more books and watch less TV - my goal is one book a month.
4. Cook more often - I baked my first two batches of cupcakes and I plan on cooking at least once a week (on the weekend) and going from there.
5. Finish blogging about the people who have visited me since moving to San Francisco - Cintia, Angela, Megan, and Sheel I haven’t forgotten about you guys and I will have the pictures and a few words up very very soon.

Updated with:

1. Become a local - “… where everybody knows your naaammmme”
2. Became a better person - why not?!

I admit I’ve neglected this blog for the past couple weeks.  I apologize to anyone who still reads this and especially Jody, who was the first from the Virginians to keep this lonely expat entertained for an entire weekend.

After a rocky and dramatic Sunday morning (my fault of course), Jody and I managed to pull it together and make it to the California Academy of Sciences.  We decided to take a cabby though I have since found a bus that takes passengers directly to the Academy for $7 while also giving you an all-day Muni pass - not a bad deal.  Regular admission to the Academy is $25/person.  Being a wannabe San Franciscan I decided to get the Academy membership which gives me a full years worth of free visits with the added bonus of being able to bring a guest for free.  (I’ve been twice already, so it’s pretty much paid for itself.)  With a membership card there is also no line to stand in - so score!

Inside the Academy we decided to get food first in one of the 2 eateries found inside the building.  We ended up sharing a sandwich plate for almost $15 - might’ve been $16.  After the pricey gnoshing we walked around the left wing of the Academy.  The left-wing exhibit was of the garden-variety type with lots of reading and looking at dead animals or pictures of animals.  And I am only writing this because I don’t really remember what I saw or read there. Jody?

My favorite was and will probably continue to be the aquarium in the lower level of the building.  From the albino alligator to the snakes, badass tarantulas and weird looking hoppy fish, to the alligator gar and dead, stuffed Coelycanth and colorful tropical fish of the Philippine coral reefs.  From the floor level, you could walk across a boardwalk and look down on the tropical fish that swim around the reefs, criss-crossing with the stingrays and sharks that play beside the planetarium I still have yet to see.

Behind the Academy is a park - a nice park, that had some children playing tables and chairs under heat lamps and of course - a bar.  I’ve gotten used to the fact that nothing here is complete without at least a bar that serves Flat Tire.  It was a nice time outside on the Academy patio.

That night we decided to spend Jody’s last dinner in SF with my good friends (read: only friends), Josh and Kristin, in North Beach.  Famous for its Italian restaurants, Yelp.com did not lead me astray with the restaurant it helped me to choose.  We decided to walk the 20 minutes to the North Beach area from my apartment and arrived early and for one reason or another decided to wait for Kristin and Josh in the restaurant a few door’s away (Pinocchio’s) for a glass of wine.

My Midwestern friends arrived and we headed to Franchino’s for my first Italian dinner in North Beach.  The food was delectable.  I don’t totally remember what anyone had but to anyone that decides to visit San Francisco - a North Beach Italian restaurant is definitely a must-eat.

After dinner our foursome decided to cap off the night with 1 or 2 - maybe 3 hours at Sugar Cafe.  I had my first taste of Fernet with a ginger ale chaser.  With the European-style couches, red-purple mood lighting, by a fireplace we toasted the night - and I said goodbye to Jody.

Thank you for seeing me… and for everything.

Win

Muir Woods was as peaceful as it was spectacular.  We walked about 2 miles along the boardwalked trail around these 1000 year old giants taking it all in.  I usually hate to get existential about anything but its amazing how trees and a simple walk can get you wondering about things bigger than what you’re doing today or what you’re going to eat for dinner tomorrow.  But I digress.. and here are some cool pics:

We stayed for around 2 hours before we had to drive back to the city, return the car, and hop on a ferry to the most famous prison in the U.S.

The Alcatraz Cruise experience was just that - an experience.  As cold as it was outside with the whipping winds, water spray, and general coldness we braved half the trip at the front of the boat.  The thick fog hid the island from our view most of the way but when we came within yards, the mystique surrounding the ‘Rock’ was more than apparent.

I know the pictures are less than stellar but I tried.  When we arrived on Ellis Island an informative, fast-talking, chipmunk-looking tour guide took us through the first half of our tour.  He described to us in very excited tones the history of the island and how the prison eventually came to inhabit it.  When we reached the doors to the prison itself we were given headphones and a player that took us through each section of Alcatraz explaining both the facilities and the inmates that made the prison so famous.  From Al Capone to the Birdman, the ‘Battle of Alcatraz’, and the mystery of the escaped fugitives whose bodies were never found - the tour and the little man that spoke to me through the headphones was captivating.

The tour ended and back on the mainland it took us a bit to find a way back to my apt.  San Francisco is many things, but it is definitely not friendly when it comes to cab-riders trying to find a way home.  Eventually we found one of the 10 cabs that roamed around the city and got made it back.

Our night of boogie took us to Bruno’s in the Mission.  Though we planned on crawling around the area, the music and the atmosphere kept us there the entire night…. and into Sunday.

Where the next installment will take us…

]]> http://www.winraguini.com/2008/11/muir-woods-and-alcatraz/feed/ http://www.winraguini.com/2008/11/bittersweet/ http://www.winraguini.com/2008/11/bittersweet/#comments Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:18:00 +0000 win http://www.winraguini.com/?p=86 would probably be the best way to describe last weekend - which started with my very first visitor. The first, I hope, of many.

Jody came on Thursday night. It was really nice to see someone from home - I almost missed it a little less. So when I met up with her at SFO airport the weekend was off to really great start.

As soon as we arrived at my studio after a short 30 minute BART ride from the airport we began the festivities with dinner at Osha thai, only a few blocks away.  I ordered one of my two favorites (apologies for not having a picture of the meal off-hand) seafood curry while Jody had the Pad See Ew I believe.  Feeling stuffed from the food and me tired from the long week at work, her from the long flight from D.C. you’d think we’d call it a night - but I think most know me better than that.  It had been a while since I’d had a night out so I decided to start then - curry-smelling and all.  Luckily the lounge next door served my expectations of a low-key evening perfectly.  Energy would need to be reserved this night as we were just getting started.  In the morning… Napa.

We got off to somewhat of a late start as we had planned to get to Napa around 11 or so.  Our ETA turned from 11am to 1:30pm as we suffered through a 30-45 minute wait at Avis for the rental car.  An upside to the headache, however, was the sweet grey Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder convertible we hocked from the ambiguous Asian man at the Avis counter.  With the top down we decided to make a pit-stop to the top of Lombard street, well-known for being the “crookedest street in the world.”

After the ziggy-zaggy cruise down the steep hill we headed to Napa - face to the wind.  Though some of us preferred hood.

Thanks to some great sleuthing by Jody at the brochure stand at Avis, we decided on our first vineyard - Castello de Amorosa.  The building on the vineyard is an actual castle built in the U.S. by an “eccentric” Italian winemaker who also owns V. Sattui vineyards.  We picked up tickets for a later wine-tasting/tour and found two nearby wineries for a quick wine-tasting.  Our first actual Napa wine-tasting happened at Sterling vineyards. From the ticket booth we hopped onto a small gondola that took us about a half-mile up a hill onto the main building.  Walking through the building we stopped off at three separate wine-tasting areas.  In-between each of the areas we saw and read about the processes the winery uses to produce its many thousands of barrels of wine each year.

Next up… Twomey vineyards - a small winery about a hop away from Sterling.  At only $5 per person, this was by far the cheapest tasting of the lot.  Not much there - a quaint patio, a small barrel room, and a hard-of-hearing wine-tasting pourer that tried to sell us a $100 bottle of wine by randomly wrapping one up and telling us we owed $105.  Bravo!

Our tour around Castello de Amorosa was amazing - definitely a must-see tour in Napa.  Though the wines were nothing special, the castle itself was well worth the $30 admission.  A few highlights of the guided tour included an authentic torture chamber in the depths of the castle along with the catacombs that held the wine barrels.  My favorite room was the Knight’s Hall.  Due to the construction of several arched pockets throughout the room, whispers from one corner of the arched wall could be heard at the diagonal corner - pretty sweet.

Before heading back to the city, we quickly hit up another winery for the road - or something like that.  No worries though, the tours throughout the day perfectly spaced out the wine imbibation.

That night we hit up a sushi restaurant “slash” random grungey bar down the street from my house which included the essentials for a completely random sushi experience with pitchers of beer, private party booths, christmas lights and a techno DJ in the middle of the room.  Needless to say, the food tasted more like an afterthought rather than a reason for stepping food inside.  The fun, really random ambiance thought did make up for it halfway.  Finishing up our random sushi dishes we walked a few more blocks to the Starlight Room.

Located at the top of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, the Starlight Room is known more for its great view of the city than anything else.  That anything else happened to be a live band playing hits from the 60s, 70s. 80s, 90s and today with a DJ playing Eminem and Ruff Ryder in-between sets.  Though nothing could take away the view from one of the tables we chose next to a window.  As we reminisced about the home I had just left 2 months ago (though it has seemed like longer) we watched the fog roll into and over the buildings off in the distance.  Its too bad I didn’t get a picture of it.  We could almost see the cloud crawling and covering the city blocks one by one.

Two drinks later… the novelty of the  view and the 40 to 50-something clientele wained on our interests and we decided to hit up one more place before everything shut down.  A coffee shop/bar (everything in SF is a slash bar apparently) piqued our interest on the way back to my apartment.  The Sugar Cafe about 3 blocks from my house was great low-key lounge.  The large fireplace and Ikeaish atmosphere seemed like a good ending to a fun-filled day so we ended the night there - and in preparation for the long posts to follow this one to recap the rest of the weekend I will also end here until next time when I will thoroughly describe Saturday and a jaunt through Muir Woods, the Alcatraz tour, and the goings-on in the Mission district on a Saturday night.

So until next time.

Update: And before I forget, Jody is correct, but of course… we eventually found out that our rental car had a very serious flaw.  When the top was up it would incessantly beeeeeeeeeeeeep every time we stopped and then started moving again.  On the way back from Napa, in order to keep this highly annoying sound from keeping us up at night we had to drive with the top down the entire hour and a half back to the city in 40 - 45 degree temperatures (with the heat blasting of course.)

Josh and Kristin met me near eastern end of the park with goodies in the form of grapes and wine.  We decided to settle in at Hippie Hill.  Famous in the 60’s for the droves of young people that filled the grass searching for personal freedom, peace in a time of war, and marijuana - not much had changed from where I sat.

Weed smoke filled the air along with the melodic (somewhat) beat from the drum circle that formed frequently at the bottom of the hill. In the drum circle you’d find people with all types of percussion/percussiony instruments/buckets drumming to a beat that seemed to morph every few minutes. Looking around I noticed much of what went on at Hippie Hill happened at most, if not all (though I have yet experience all) of the parks in San Francisco, though at a much more exuberant scale. A few feet away from us was the famous Janice Joplin tree.

History books say Ms. Joplin used to sit in the tree guitar-in-hand, heroin-in-blood and sing out to her loyal fans at the hill.

We sat for an hour or so listening to the drums, taking in the sun - and the wine, and talked about possibly going to other parts of the park to see whats-what. Remembering the park is over 1000 acres and that my iphone didn’t have exact routes for in-park travel we decided to save it for another day.

Next up at the Golden Park will be visits to:

• Japanese tea garden
• The Academy of Sciences - and actually getting in
• Bison - living at the park
• The cool waterfall that someone told me was at the park

So stay tuned.

Thanks for watching.

Case in point: Safeway.

Ignoring the homogenous and corporate nature of this grocery monolith, the city has given each of the stores located in different parts of the city their own special San Franciscan names.  I’m not totally certain this is common knowledge for everyone here, but my source is as San Franciscan as they come (part black, part Jewish and all lesbian) so I am in no place to doubt.

Safeway located in the Marina district: Babeway - where the people are just as gorgeous as the fresh produce (don’t know if that makes sense to be honest)

Safeway located in the Castro district: Gayway - no explanation needed

Safeway located in the Tenderloin district: NotSoSafeway - the Tenderloin area of San Francisco is the most dangerous part of the city, notorious for its sour milk and rotten veggies (trying to be funny here).

Safeway located in the Sunset District: WayOutOfTheWayway - a nice area to live, the Sunset District is also really freaking far from eeeeeverything

So remember - if you find yourself in the city, hungering for deli meats or a nice block of cheese, take note of your current area and address the cabby with the proper vernacular name of the Safeway grocery store nearest you.

Thanks.

1. A homeless 20-something fighting an older homeless man for a row of Fig Newtons.  Definitely, a sad sight.
2. Another person, most likely a crackhead I’m deducing, standing on the sidewalk with binoculars pointed at the sky.
3. Two little old chinese bag ladies walking down my street towards Market St. wearing the exact same clothes.  Definitely a camera-worthy scene.. the shopping carts carrying the huge bags filled with who-knows-what had as many trash bags inside of it and topping it as it had strapped to all sides of it.  The old lady in the front was directing the lady in the bag since she could barely see over her cart of trashy treasures.
4. And the best one… a 6′8″ transvestite homeless person standing beside me in a pink polk-a-dot dress and matching pantyhose.  I tried not to look up at her as she waited beside me to cross the street - she would’ve HULK-smashed me with her huge banana hands.

If only I had my camera with me this morning and the skill to ninja to a safe distance to take great pictures.  Alas, I know I will have plenty more chances.

Hopefully I can begin to post more pictures again.  Work has had me working hours upon hours - coding like a madman.  And with that I have learned more in these past few weeks than I have ever learned in any four-week span.  Though most nights have me huddled up to my laptops (yes, two… one for coding, the other for hulu.com - if you don’t know now you know ninja)  until the early morning hours, surprisingly I wake up earlier than I should and show up early to the office for more.  I confess I am not as talented or even as intelligent as my fellow co-workers but I’ve made it my mission to at least seem like I am - be it late-nights or post-collegiate library sessions.  We’ll see how that goes…

On a more relevant note… I moved into my new studio apartment a few days ago with picture definitely pending.  My humble nest boasts a quaint kitchen - sans microwave for now, a bathroom with a door that takes super-strength to close, plenty of closet space (including a clothing rack 3 feet off the ground) and my sweet living space, complete with an office nook, bay windows, and exposed brick wall.  With that, Hotel Win is open and ready for visitors!