City Hall was one of the first, and most impressive, of the landmarks we passed. The current building is a replacement of the original, destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. Apparently the monument on the roof was all the survived of the original building. It later fell off the back of a truck and was destroyed. Now that's a spot of bad luck.
The building stands intentionally taller than the United States Capitol, and displays more than it's fair share of gold leaf. An amazing sight for tourists to gaze upon, but I still couldn't help wondering how the hell the local council structure their budget to be able to afford this granduer without a revolt by the ratepayers.
The building looks like this (not my photo) ...
San Francisco is filled with beautiful Victorian architecture - including the famous painted ladies on Alamo Square. Which look a little like this (not my photo) ...
Our first hopping off point was the legendary Haight Ashbury district - which may lay claim to primary credit for my adoration of this crazy town. Haight St is just the very place to be if you're shopping for second-hand clothes, smoking paraphenalia, hats, fetish wear, antique clothing, books, musical instruments, and other stuff both weird and fulfilling of wonderous desires. One of my favourite clothing stores on Haight St would have admirably outfitted both Prince (as known presently, formerly, or prospectively) and Captain Jack Sparrow. It sold the most perfectly formed top hats I've ever seen.
From one of the second-hand stores I purchased just the leather jacket that I never managed to procure as an Arthur Fonzerelli devoted pre-teen (though I do recall owning a black vinyl jacket lined in astonishingly scarlet satin). Being a cold city, this jacket was functional as well as smashingly attractive.
In my new jacket, I looked precisely this cool ...
Now if only I'd purchased that second-hand leather cod-piece I had my eye on ...
The Booksmith on Haight St is a bountiful buffet for the bibliophile. A cornucopia of comprehensive composition. It brought my fiscally conservative personality into direct conflict with my love of a good book (or twenty). The result ... despite the apparent evidence of my extensive library - I'm still at heart a massive tight-arse and left empty handed though heavy of heart.
Another stand-out was the Haight Ashbury Music Centre. A music shop as I remember them from a forgotten era. An era when music shops could afford floor stock. Hundreds of guitars hanging on walls. I felt young again to just stand there in slack-jawed wonderment.
As the buskers along Haight St make clear, there are far more people in San Francisco who own guitars than can play them.
Another noteworthy sight from the open top of our tour bus was a black girl being handcuffed on the street by more policemen than was probably necessary. I have no idea why she was being arrested, but Obama is still alive so I'm ruling out presidential assassination.
We crossed and recrossed the Golden Gate Bridge. It can be cold and windy crossing the bridge on the open top of a tour bus, but it can be tolerable when you've got a heavy leather jacket and the foresight to lose your hair so that it doesn't blow into your face.
Did you know that the Golden Gate Bridge is painted International Orange - the same colour as the pressure suits worn by NASA astronauts?
Did you know that the cables supporting the 2km span are almost one metre in diameter, and contain 27,572 separate wires? In total, there are 129,000km of wire in the cables.
I'm what's known in the trade as a trivia-trove.
Anyway, here's what the bridge looks like when Jesamine sits in front of it ...
And at this point, I'll leave it for another day. Goodbye.
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