Gone West 2

San Francisco 23 May 2016

Gone West 2

We had been in bed early the night before so consequently were up early, I wrote up my day blog and watched the sun rise over San Francisco from the dining room of Richard’s holiday apartment.

The weather was a little overcast but warm, we had decided the evening before that we would have an American Breakfast in true style at Chow diner that we had visited yesterday evening. We had arranged with Richard that we would meet up at the Sunday market that takes place at UN Plaza opposite City Hall.

We walked down Dolores Street passing the original Mission to St Francis of Assisi and the new church, before turning along Church Street to Chow. 

We selected a seat at the bar (well wherever else), at once came a glass of chilled water and a cup to be filled with never ending coffee.  I had noticed my neighbour being served an interesting  breakfast, so I asked what it was and on being informed we ordered  the same, organic scrambled egg breakfast, sausage patties, bacon and pancakes and sourdough toast. We chatted with the neighbour who informed us he came for breakfast in Chow every Sunday, coffee being topped up as and when it dropped to below half.

Our breakfast came and filled the bar space in front of us, it was huge. Everything was wonderfully cooked, the creamy scrambled eggs had courgettes, asparagus and goat's cheese running through it, the bacon crisp, and the chicken sausage patties very tasty. 

We had only ordered one small stack of pancakes and it was truly enough, but everything was tasty and well cooked, the staff attentive and full of banter. A great place to breakfast, well done Chow.

We paid up and then it was time to meet up with Richard at the market, we walked down Market St. and then turned into Van Ness Ave. passing the Symphony Hall, the Opera before turning into Grove street passing the Civic Hall and the Asian Art Museum. We sat in the warming sun at the Monument to the founding of San Francisco, we had arranged to meet Richard at “the” Monument, but unfortunately we were waiting at the “wrong” monument. But luckily the “other” Monument to Simon Bolivar was just across the road so we were soon reunited. 

The "Wrong Monument"

We had a good hour just browsing the stalls full with the fresh spring produce that is brought in from the farms surrounding San Francisco, there motto being “We grow what we sell”. 

Here are a few of the stalls selling their fresh produce.

And Some not so fresh!

It was then time to go to the de Young museum of Art, we had attempted to go there last time we visited san Francisco, not knowing that on Mondays it is closed, we were not making the same mistake again. So Richard took us to the bus stop for the Number 5 trolleybus that took us straight to the rear park entrance nearest to the museum.

On the way to the museum entrance we passed some swing dancers, this is a weekly occurrence but we were not in the mood for dancing so we watched for a while and then strolled towards the de Young Museum entrance. A wonderful thing in the USA is that senior citizens get reduction on transport and entrance fees to museums.

Here is a small selection of the works on show starting with the large mural in the entrance hall.

I went outside and sat in the sculpture garden,enjoying a cold beaker of water and enjoyed the warming afternoon sun to reflect on what I had seen.

One thing I found lacking in the museum was any art of the first nations, the Indian tribes of North America, there was art and artefacts, from Inuits, Eskimos, Aztecs, and other early civilisations of Central and South America, even some from Papua New Guinea, but none from the first nation, I wonder why?

After we left the de Young Museum we were aiming to go to the Japanese tea garden, but the number of people waiting to go in and the price of 10 dollars put us off, so we collected a free blueberry yoghurt ice and crossed the road to watch some free entertainment at the bandstand, it was Armenian dancers from the very little to the older and a full 30 piece band. Unfortunately my battery was out of power so no pics you will be glad to know.

We now headed for tram 33 to take us back to Dolores Park, having decided to knock our original plan of a trip to Chinatown on the head. We arrived back at the apartment and Richard suggested a nice Italian Restaurant called Noeteca that he knew, the owner and cook is a first generation Italian so the food has not been messed about with.  We all had a wonderful Chicken and dumpling soup followed by salads for all of us, Linda beetroot and goat’s cheese, Richard a Caprese and myself, a Chicory, Gorgonzola (Wisconsin) and crispy bacon. We then headed home and a well-earned sleep, as we are still suffering from jet lag and getting up very early (04:00).