San Fran Travelogue

Located in the Golden Gate Park, this five-acre authentic Japanese garden and forest set-back is an experience unlike most anything this side of the Pacific Rim.

The garden was originally a planned showcase for the international exposition of 1894 and soon after came under the care of a Japanese superintendent.  Mr. Hagiwara expanded the grounds to its current

size, lived there with his family and cared for the property until 1942 when, post Pearl Harbor, he, along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans were forced into an internment camp.  Unfortunately for the Hagiwara family, after WWII he was not allowed to return the Tea Garden and many of his

family's belongings were removed permanently.  Today, as a result of the original vision and years of patient care, the Tea Garden is one of the most popular destinations in San Fran.

A virtual living history of outdoor Japanese culture, the garden features what is called a classic arched drum bridge, pagodas, stone lanterns, koi ponds and a Zen Rock Garden.

More than anything, once the visitor walks in through the elaborate wooden gate, you find yourself inside a scene of serenity against the backdrop of a hectic city.  Much of the purpose of a Zen garden is  to highlight the sights and sounds of nature.  The Zen monk might spend a lifetime trying to create the perfectly unified rock garden and that care is then experienced by the visitor.

San Fran Travelogue

"Walk the Sequoia woods at any time of year and you will say they are the most beautiful and majestic on earth. Beautiful and impressive contrasts meet you everywhere: the colors of tree and flower, rock and sky, light and shade, strength and frailty, endurance and evanescence, tangles and supple hazel-bushes, tree-pillars about as rigid as granite domes, roses and violets, the smallest of their kind, blooming around the feet of the giants, and rugs of the lowly chamaebatia where the sunbeams fall."
     – John Muir, from The Mountains of California

The story of Muir Woods, 12 miles north of San Francisco, is one more example of the far too often bittersweet history of natural resources in America.  The majestically mammoth Redwood trees (some can grow well over 300 feet tall), now one of the most popular attractions in the entire Bay Area, almost entirely vanished by way of the sawmill, man-made fire, and overall mindless exploitation by the turn of the 20th century.  A congressman by the name of Kent recognized the diminishing trend of the Redwood trees and bought the 611 acres that is now Muir Woods for $45,000 from a water company in order to preserve it from guaranteed destruction.  Years later Teddy Roosevelt decided to claim the forest as a national monument.  When he asked Kent if he would like the forest named after him, he declined, but suggested instead that John Muir, the great forest advocate and naturalist of the Sierra Nevada, deserved that title.  Knowing this brief history, it makes it all that much easier to appreciate the delicate nature of a species of tree that might otherwise be perceived as nothing more than rugged survivors.

Muir himself says it just fine what it is like to walk under the broad natural structures of the sequoias.  The appreciative visitor might sense inspiration in such a gathering of trees – to see, in a sense, what is naturally possible, and that nature itself is considerably more interesting than anything man made, for the very reason that it is natural...unmanipulated, free, just as it should be.  We hiked up the old Ben Johnson Trail for an hour and a half; as the trail vista elevated, there were the tree canopies, lush, green, beautifully imperfect.

I'd sense that Man has always perceived such trees as beautiful and inspiring.  When sheer use and profit goes unchecked by appreciation and understanding however, exploitation will occur by human nature virtually by definition.  To visit such a spot once is enough to support it.  Muir walked the Sierra Nevadas by himself for years lending his eloquent, self-taught voice to a mountain region.  By doing so, he preceded most of what we commonly think of conservation by a century.

San Fran Travelogue

You might not be able to make up a more auspicious name than James Lick to credit for assisting in the founding of the longest running chocolate manufacturer in America, Ghirardelli, but that is, as they say, what it is.  Lick, a self-made man as a piano maker in South America decided to bring 600 pounds of chocolate from Peru to America, later convincing his

neighbor, Ghiradelli, to invest in one of his properties in the fledgling village of San Francisco.  In 1893, Ghiradelli, whose chocolate company was growing, did, and eventually gobbled up the entire

block, including the cocoa building and clock tower, and the rest is sweet history.  The brick complex,

only a short downhill walk from Lombard street, is a rustic diamond in the rough, standing out as it does as a quaint get away against the more industrial surrounding streets and skyscrapers.  A courtyard opens to a pristine fountain along a mall walk lined by a diversity of boutique shops and cafes.

In its entirety, the Ghirardelli Square complex, now including mixed residences and hotel accommodations, is considered the first fully adapted re-use project of its kind in the U.S. It is said that above almost all other San Fran landmarks, Ghiradelli tops out as the place that people remember most fondly looking back at their trip.

San Fran Travelogue

A local San Fran blogger or two have written that the famous city destination Lombard Street – the crookedest street in the world – isn't particularly interesting if you're from the city.  It is, they say, just

a flower-lined street with a bunch of pedestrians packed on the up and downside, and likely more than one impatient proprietor who lives in one of the houses lining the curved destination.  For the first-time tourist, though, the street is a neat experience if for no other reason it asks of you to walk the

real town, upward and inward from the waterfront, Union Square, the Presidio, or from any other direction, and see for yourself the hilly geography of the city and maybe most interestingly how homes have cutely adapted.  Maybe Lombard street, I'd respond, is only unique in how it represents the compact, creative

nature of the urban housing through the city, just amplified on Lombard because of its steepness.  In fact, back in 1922, it was one of the original proprietors who came up with the idea of turning the hill into a series of eight hair pin turns because most vehicles of the time simply could not descend the angle.  We walked from the Fisherman's Wharf after taking a trolley along the Embarcadero all the

way to Lombard and met the standard hundreds of tourists gathered at either end of the street, while other more rigorous travelers either walked up and down the steps or waited in a car line to drive down the street...slowly.  What adds to the tourism is that at the top the famous Powell-Hyde trolley stops at

the very top of the hill waiting for its open doors to eventually boil over with passengers as it readies for a speedy roll down toward Broadway.  As you stand in the moment of the Lombard destination,

what comes to mind is the tolerance of the householders to either side, as they share daily their short but memorable strip of city history.

San Fran Travelogue

Pier 15 along the Embarcadero houses the amazing Exploratorium science center, voted in the book Forces For Good as one of the 12 most effective non-profits in the U.S. and was the only museum to

 make the list.  Since it's re-opening along the Pier system off the Bay, it has become a world-wide model for hands-on science, exhibits, and teacher training.  When we arrived at opening on our second day to San Fran, we approached the multi-level museum up on the top level, at the Observatory deck, where sun, water, erosion, light reflection (camera obscura) exhibits matched the

view of the bay and bridge.  Up along the main wall, just above the map-racks, was an enormous screen feeding a live cast of the Nautilus and its attendant radio-controlled submersibles, The Argus and Hercules, which happened to be exploring that morning off the coast of California seeking evidence of methane leaks

at the highly-charged tectonic ocean floor and also the wreckage sight of one of the most famous dirigibles in U.S. history, the USS Macon.  The Macon had a short but fairly famous life span back in the early 1930's – the second largest helium ship ever constructed, just shy of the famous Hindenburg.

On a fateful trip across the continent it ran into a severe storm off the coast of California and was able to gently land off of Monterrey Bay, and immediately sunk, losing only two of its 76 member crew.  The museum staff said that what we were watching was a narrated tour of the sight from members above surface and they would be calling in directly to the Exploratorium later that day for a live public interview where questions could be asked from the crowd.  Below, on other levels, we

Walkway outside of the Exploratorium

experimented with fog, watched a cow's eye dissection, experienced a color-less (but lit) room, and learned how such a structure atop an enormous pier jutting out into the bay could one day become a zero energy facility.  The original Exploratorium was the brain-child of Robert Oppenheimer, a famous physicist who at one point in his illustrious career decided to turn away from academia in

search of more hands-on approaches to the sciences and constructed over the year hundreds of exhibits the purpose of learning in what he called a sort of cookbook of exhibits which are now used world-wide as a model for understanding our world.

San Fran Travelogue

San Fran based restaurant designer Pat Kuleto  has said about himself that he was born with a builder's permit instead of a birth certificate.  Close to 200 restaurant designs now under his belt, he has pioneered a specialized field that used to be the prospect of the restaurant owner him or herself: find the location, build the building, design the interior, and run it for life, if fortunate.  Kuleto says he is forever trying to match a narrative fantasy to a real-life design, and has had the gaul to make many of these happen, including our first restaurant excursion on our trip to San Fran, down the Embarcadero, at the foot of the Bay Bridge, and virtually on top of the water.

And fantasy meets seafood is exactly what Kuleto and chef Mark Franz achieve at Waterbar.  One of Kuleto's long-time lead builders has mentioned that as he is working on a restaurant project he sometimes wonders if Kuleto's taste is a bit to kitschy (Disney-like spectacle) but that he is almost always astonished at the end result of how a design works out in the long term.  Waterbar is a great example of this.  Corners are softened by a perfect lighting; the aquarium tubes are a bit dreamlike; glass walls and a balcony look like a classic New Orleans style cafe overlooking Bourbon street.  Yet the restaurant, in full, feels like you think about San Franscisco – a sort of sleek wharf space, close to seafood and lit by the night light of two major bridges, the Bay and the Golden.  

An open air kitchen lends to the feel of the populated energy of the Embarcadero, the diversity of the streets, and the collage of smells swirling in and around virtually every street corner.  

A lone tugboat sits outside promenade under the late afternoon sunlight.  It might very well bring into kitchen the crab and sole on the menu.  Large boats and schooners parade out over the crisp blue bay.  A postcard is what Kuleto has brought to life.  

San Fran Travelogue

Matching the postcard in the mind to what you eventually see on the ground is always the trick of travel – to seek, or not to seek, that is the question when trying to devise your own small portion of the travel fantasy.  I try not to over-do the research of the actual look of things (the size, color and feel of a building or body of water), but do like to know where I am on a map and to be able to point out things in my mind and hopefully share a spare detail when possible. I remember our trip to New York a couple of years ago, we were on a fairly short Revolutionary War tour of deep downtown, near the stock exchange, and we had randomly run into Beaver Street, which I remembered was the location of my number one restaurant location, Delmonicos, the oldest in New York.  I asked if we might walk a block and a half west and just take a look at the place, maybe take a pic or two.  We got to the restaurant only to find out it was closed for repairs.  A workman happened to be watching our little party and must have felt like sharing a spare detail himself, walked up to us and mentioned he was a cousin to the owner.  He let us in with his private key and we had Delmonicos to ourself for half an hour while the cousin went about his business painting tables.  Even the locals might not know every fog-laden corner of every block of San Fran, but it's fascinating beyond anything I've experienced to know the neighborhood, its history, and why people are where they are at any particular time of day, weekday, weekend, happy hour, or floor-level.  We got somewhat lucky with our postcard of a hotel, the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero, for more reasons than I can list.

Atrium level at Hyatt, Ferry Market tower in background

We knew from the post card research a few things about this hotel: one, is that it was right at the same
center as the Ferry Market, the thriving foodie conglomeration that also served on the same pier as the cross-water ferries; we knew, then, it was at the hub of transportation which skirted along the shoreline, right toward the Bay Bridge, and left down to Fisherman's Wharf and beyond toward the Marina and Golden Gate; finally we knew it had the largest atrium of any hotel in the world, and were intrigued.

The atrium was enormous, sheets of strung lights falling down from around the 10th floor, underneath the Eclipse restaurant.  We were never quite sure how they did it, but the atrium was actually very pleasant and quiet, and you felt like you were inside a well-lit and windowed mountain, looking up to the ceiling for the crack of sun.  Across the street, the Ferry Building, and toward the Bay Bridge piers

looking out into the blue waters and beyond, Treasure Island, and beyond that Oakland.

Under the base of the Bay Bridge, the Waterbar our first restaurant

Cupid's Span bow and arrow at Bay Bridge Embarcadero

So far, in the first day anyway, the postcard had come alive – no fog to dampen the colors and a pleasant ocean wind tumbling off the bay as (what Carly called it anyway) "free air-conditioning."