Category: Travel

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Monday/ to San Francisco

I have a few more weeks of traveling out to San Francisco for my project there, and so off I went this morning. Here are pictures that I took today.

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I’m sitting in 15A on the wing at the gate in Seattle airport. We’re about to be pushed back from the gate, it’s 7 am, and there is light rain outside.
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Here is San Francisco, an unusual approach this morning with the Golden Gate Bridge in the foreground. Normally I just get to see the Bay Bridge (further back in the middle of the picture).
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Sidewalk sign here in San Francisco. Remember to vote! (yes, I did), and drink coffee (yes, I will).
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Checking out the progress on 181 Fremont: an 801 ft mixed-use skyscraper under construction in the South of Market District of San Francisco, California.
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Monday/ Halloween in San Francisco

It was raining lightly this morning as the Uber driver pulled up in front of my house, dry at my arrival in San Francisco throughout the day, with rain starting here tonight, as well. There were several people dressed up to the nines in Halloween garb on the street, and on the subway.  I saw a Spiderman, a bunch of grapes (purple balloons), a teddy bear and a witch.

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Happy Halloween, says the sign iinside a Wells Fargo branch in downtown San Francisco.
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At the check-in desk of the Marriott Fisherman’s Wharf. I like the blue Halloween pumpkin on the USA Today (I guess orange is not as striking a color as the blue).
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Thursday/ going home

Another Thursday has rolled by, and I got to go home and sleep in my own bed.  The year we call 2016 is rapidly running out on us, all of us.  It’s crunch time on our short project with the holiday season approaching, and with even the very end of the year now in sight.

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Here’s the beautiful view from my our Alaska Airlines (Boeing 737) flight in, as we were approaching Seattle.
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Wednesday is over

It was a long and busy day, but it is over.   I got to watch the last half of the third and final US Presidential debate.  (Can we dispense of all these silly formalities and all go vote now and get the 2016 US Presidential Election over with, once and for all?).

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This is Market Street at Powell. It LOOKS as if I took this picture standing in the middle of traffic, but I’m actually waiting at a special curb for the F Line street car in between the lanes. The street car goes up to that speck in the distance that is the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero, and then swings to the left to go about a mile to Fisherman’s Wharf.
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Tuesday’s pictures

Here are today’s pictures of the city.   The weather was a perfect 70.

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The Shell Building is at 100 Bush St. It was built in 1929 and occupied by Shell Oil Company until the 1960s.  It features Art Deco and Modern Gothic architectural styles.
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The TransAmerica pyramid was completed in 1972, and has been the tallest building in the city since then (48 floors). It is soon to be surpassed by the Salesforce Tower that is under construction, though. (Note : the straight lines on the building edges are bent slightly by the wide panorama angle of my phone’s lens).
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I like the clean modern lines of the Umpqua Bank’s flagship building in San Francisco, on 450 Samsone St. It opened recently, in 2013 and features mobile concierges inside, iPads, interactive touch screens, outdoor seating and a free “loaner” bike.
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Here’s the street car that I took to Fisherman’s Wharf to get back to my hotel from the office.
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Monday/ to San Francisco

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Virgin America airplanes at San Francisco’s Terminal 2 at our arrival at 9.30 am this morning.
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Check out the Buich Building at 242 California Street in downtown San Francisco. It has a dark gray facade with a black marble surround for the restaurant storefront, finished off with an ornate green cornice. Built in 1909, it’s original name was ‘New World Coffee Stand’.

Another week in San Francisco has started for me.  I took a nice walk around a block or four during my lunch break, and ‘discovered’ the beautiful Buich Building with the Tadich Grill restaurant inside, on California Street. (It’s been there since 1909).

 

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Thursday/ wet weather

It’s wet in Seattle .. a img_7766-smvery large system has moved in that will bring rains for Friday and the weekend, and high winds (up to 60 mph) later tonight.

Our pilot explained that there may be some turbulence on our flight, but he would fly at 24,000 ft all the way up to Seattle (usually it’s 40,000 ft).  It was wet at our arrival, but the flight was not bad at all.  I even took the train and the bus in home, got a little wet from walking the two blocks from the bus stop – but probably got in earlier than I would have, with a taxi that would have had to deal with a lot of wet weather rush hour traffic.

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San Francisco airport’s International Terminal as we were pushed back at 4 pm was dry ..
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.. but Seattle airport was very wet at our arrival at 6 pm.
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Tuesday/ Mission Street

Here are some interesting sights from Mission Street in downtown San Francisco.

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The Salesforce Tower construction continues nicely, from the looks of it about halfway done to the top (building with blue covers in the middle; will have 61 floors when done). The building with the modern prism-like architecture on the left of it is 535 Mission Street. It has 27 floors and opened in 2014.
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This People Tower is by artist Jonathan Borofsky, and is on the plaza at 555 Mission Street, in front of the Deloitte Consulting firm’s San Francisco office. (For my Seattle readers: Borofsky also created the giant black Hammering Man that is in front of the Seattle Art Museum). The odd little head sculpture in front of the ivy wall is by Ugo Rondinone.
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Here is Salesforce West, around the corner from the new Salesforce Tower, a 1985 building. Look at the ‘waterfalls’ in the lobby inside. It’s not real water, but giant LCD panels that go from black and ‘water’ starting to flow, up to full-on ‘waterfalls’ cascading down the wall.
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Monday/ to San Francisco

Another week started in San Francisco for me.  I went for a nice walkabout during lunch time. Sunny but mild outside (57° F/ 13° C), so light jacket weather – to ward off the wind chill from the breeze from the ocean.

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It was foggy at Seattle-Tacoma airport this morning. This is shortly after 7 am as we are getting pushed back from the gate.
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This sign is posted in the Embarcadero station. Finally! some new train cars are about to replace the 40-year old train cars from the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART).
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This is the Royal Insurance Building at 201 Sansome Street. It is a San Francisco landmark. The Georigan Revival ornament is white marble.
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The Mills Building in the Financial District is another San Francisco landmark. The building across the street (in the reflection) is the Russ Building. It houses the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.
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Tuesday/ Market Street

It was a beautiful 63°F/ 17°C outside today when I took a walk at lunch time around the north end of Market Street here in downtown San Francisco.

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This is the corner of the Palace Hotel on Market Street. There is a Ghirardelli Chocolate store inside.
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The date on the Patrick & Co building on Sansome St says 1906: the year of the San Francisco Earthquake. A fire destroyed the building after the earthquake, but in 1920 the building was remodeled, and the stationary store was in business once again.
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Here the Muni train arriving at Embarcadero station. If you’re just going a few stops, the Muni train is much nicer than the BART.
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It’s Monday, and so : to San Francisco

Man! I think I deserve a public transportation gold star for my extensive use of it today.  To wit: early morning, I took the bus downtown to go to the dentist; took the light rail and bus back home; an hour later ran out to the airport by bus and light rail, took Alaska Airlines to San Francisco; stopped at the office for two hours at the Embarcadero station, and then went back and took the BART train out to Walnut Creek.  (There is another convention or something going on in the city, and all the hotel rooms are double their normal expensive rates).

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Twelve fashion faux pas offered by the Men’s Health magazine in the dentist’s office. (Hey, I don’t have any of those items in my closet. But now I know to steer clear).
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Our Alaska Airlines plane to San Francisco was at the far end of the North Terminal. There is no jet way there; the passengers walk down a set of stairs, out onto the tarmac and onto the plane. (It’s actually nice, in a way, to go outside, feel the cool air, and step into the plane).
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Thursday/ home

I took the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train to San Francisco airport again, today.   (There was a terrible commuter train crash this morning at the Hoboken Terminal train station, on the New Jersey side of Manhattan.   A woman on the platform was struck by debris and killed, and some 114 passengers on the train were injured).

Check out the Amazon Prime Air cargo plane that I spotted at out arrival at Seattle airport.

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Here’s Amazon’s first ‘Prime Air’ Boeing 767-300, spotted as we landed at Sea-Tac airport. The plane is operated by Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings Inc., and one of 40 that Amazon has agreed to lease as it broadens its system for shipping and delivering goods quickly. There had been Christmases where Amazon’s delivery partners United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. could not keep up with the deluge of parcels to deliver by Christmas Day, and Amazon is jumping into the logistics fray with its own airplanes.
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Wednesday/ Fog City

Well, the heat is gone. It was decidedly cool tonight at 6.30 pm on San Francisco’s streets (57 °F/ 13°C), with the high buildings shrouded in the fog that blanketed the city.

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Here’s the mural across from the No 38 bus stop on O’Farrell Street (see? the bus in the mural is No 38). I’m on my way in to the office; 7.30 am in the morning.
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This is the inside of Powell Street station in downtown San Francisco. The Muni Metro train to Powell Street Station is my other means of transportation. I can walk to the hotel from there.
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This is the corner of Powell Street and Ellis Street .. check out the fog around the building a few blocks away.
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Monday/ it’s warm in San Francisco

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I love this depiction of Einstein, wild hair and all (at the Saleasforce Tower constructon site). It’s the Salesforce Einstein, the artificial intelligence ‘engine’ in Salesforce that analyses customer and sales data.

 

There was a giant mosquito caught in a little spider’s web in the corner of my front door’s frame this morning when I left the house at 5.15 am.

Our flight out to San Francisco went without delay.  There was no fog around, at all. The reason : it was a record (94°F /34°C) in San Francisco on Sunday, and still very warm today ( 90°F/ 32°C).   It does look like we are on a cooling curve with the day time highs for the rest of the week here, though.

 

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Here is the Pacific Gas And Electric Company building where I work on my project. That must be a California grizzly bear down below, surrounded by farm produce. The building was completed in 1971 and has 34 floors.
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Here’s an up-to-date picture of the Salesforce Tower’s construction progress.
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Thursday/ plane, train and bus

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Arriving at Sea-Tac Airport’s North Terminal.
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Here comes the north-bound train (at the Sea-Tac airport station).
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And here is the No 10 bus that takes me that last mile up the hill to Capitol Hill, so that I don’t have to drag my suitcase along for ten blocks.

Our flight into Seattle arrived 30 minutes late today.  We flew into a strong headwind of about 110 mph for most of the way.  Our pilot said that with a tailwind the airplane would could go as much as 120 miles per gallon, per passenger, but that today it would probably be closer to 60 miles per gallon, per passenger.

So .. with a motorcycle or scooter and say, 24 hrs to work with (instead of 2 hours!), I could have made it to Seattle with more or less the same fuel consumption compared to flying up with the airplane !

 

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Monday/ light rain

It was raining lightly this morning when the Uber driver stopped at my house to take me to the airport.   ‘Drop me at Arrivals’ I instructed him as we approached the airport (some mornings there is such a crush on the approach to the Departures level, that one is stuck in the taxi for 10 or 15 minutes) .. but it was not  reallynecessary.  The summer holidays are over, and the airport is much quieter than just a week or two ago.

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It’s 6.35 am on Monday morning, and I’m just settling into seat 9A on Alaska Airlines 222 to San Francisco.
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Wednesday/ Post & Taylor Streets

Every night this week, after taking the bus uphill to the hotel,  I have walked back down to Union Square and Market Street to get something to eat.

The sun sets at 7.15 pm, leaving just enough daylight to check out the buildings that line Post, Taylor and O’Farrell Streets.

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Here’s the lie of the land for downtown San Francisco. The green diagonal street is Market Street, and SOMA means South of Market Street.
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This is the Owl Tree Bar, a hole-in-the-wall bar on the corner of Post and Taylor Streets. It has red carpeting and black leather booths inside.
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Here is 420 Taylor, the current headquarters of bulletin-board discussion/ social media company Reddit. Reddit is a play on ‘I read it on Reddit’ and bills itself as ‘the front page of the internet’.
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666 Post is an apartment building, beautifully refurbished inside and out, from the looks of it.
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And here is Foley’s Irish House on O’Farrell. ‘Time for a Pint’ (of Guinness, I’m sure) says the sign on the corner.
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Tuesday/ the No 38 Muni bus

My mode of transport to the office this week is by Muni bus, the No 38 (the others : on foot, BART, Uber, taxi, street car).   The bus is crowded, and carries the world : Indian people, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, European (tourists, but just one or two), African American and hey, even a South African American.

*Not really an option for me, unless I pack a folding bicycle like the one dude that got into the elevator today.

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Here’s my bus route : O’Farrell to Market Street, and then I get dropped off in front of my office building.  Walk for 4 mins to the bus stop, says Google, and then 6 stops/ 10 mins on the bus. 
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Here’s an old building from my cheating bank (Wells Fargo), as seen from the bus. ‘SAFE DEPOSIT VAULT’ says the gold letters at the base of the corner pillar. Well, those days are long, long gone. Our money is all digital, zeroes and ones, now .. and is it safe?
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Monday/ Union Square (sort of)

Monday was the start of another week for in San Francisco for me, and I’m staying in the Courtyard Marriott ‘Union Square’.  The name of the hotel is a little bit of a stretch, seeing that Union Square is five blocks away.  The area around the hotel does have a good inventory of art deco buildings, and art galleries.

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Here’s the Taylor Hotel (no frills-budget hotel) on Taylor Street.
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I love the green copper clad Art Deco exterior of the Skechers (shoe store) building on the corner of O’Farrell and Powell.
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This apartment building is on the corner of Sutter and Leavenworth.

 

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Wednesday/ this week’s street cars

I still get to ride in ‘new’ street cars (‘new’ to me, not new to the world!) – and so here they are, the ones that took me to the office on Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning.

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Street car 1032 used to be painted white and green. It was built in 1948 and has been operating in San Francisco since the 1970s.
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This is another Italian-designed and built street car, that had done some service in Milan. It was built in 1928, and still has wooden benches inside that runs along the length of the street car.