Gallery – Page 4 – Willem's Planet

October 4, 2016March 2, 2018

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.

img_7581-sm — This is the corner of the Palace Hotel on Market Street. There is a Ghirardelli Chocolate store inside.

img_7590-sm — 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.

img_7603-sm — 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.

September 14, 2016March 2, 2018

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.

img_7240-sm — 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.

img_7239-sm — 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.

img_7261-sm — 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’.

img_7238-sm — 666 Post is an apartment building, beautifully refurbished inside and out, from the looks of it.

img_7267-sm — 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.

September 12, 2016March 2, 2018

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.

img_7180-sm — Here’s the Taylor Hotel (no frills-budget hotel) on Taylor Street.

img_7199-sm — I love the green copper clad Art Deco exterior of the Skechers (shoe store) building on the corner of O’Farrell and Powell.

img_7174-sm — This apartment building is on the corner of Sutter and Leavenworth.

September 11, 2016March 2, 2018

Saturday/ the ice cube has landed

I took the light rail train down to Pioneer Square on Saturday to check out the ice cube (that I wrote about last Sunday). It’s pretty cool (icy, to be exact), but not a solid cube. Afterwards I walked up six blocks to University Street station and stopped along the way to check out The Mark, a new high-rise building under construction on Fifth Avenue.

16041457-sm — So .. here is the ice cube at noon on Saturday. It ‘landed’ in this spot in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle on Friday night. I suspect it was put together on the spot, the eight layers of ice bricks that make the cube. The edges of the bricks are warmer than their core, and starts melting first, of course.

16041467-sm2 — This is a bike rally making their way up First Avenue, by Pioneer Square. The guy in front with the Rainier brewery sidecar has a ‘Thin Blue Line’ American flag : showing support for the nation’s police force.

16041483-sm — Here is The Mark, a 660-foot (200 m) high building that will have 44 floors when completed in April 2017. The base has the smallest footprint of all the floors. I’m sure that is why those diagonal beams are necessary: to add rigidity to the bulging structure.

September 7, 2016

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.

img_7047-sm — 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.

img_7077-sm — 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.

September 6, 2016March 2, 2018

Tuesday/ 181 Fremont rising

There is a skyscraper construction boom going on in and around San Francisco’s financial district. This is 181 Fremont, with a floor count of 54 and a height of 802 ft (244m). The Salesforce Tower that is under construction nearby will boast 61 floors, and stand 970 ft (295m) tall.

IMG_7063 sm — The tall building in the back with the white strips on the edges is 181 Fremont Street, a mixed use building. The construction in the foreground is part of the Salesforce Tower; probably an atrium or entrance lobby above the street level.

img_7089-sm — And here is the Salesforce Tower, a tapered square shape with 66 floors.

August 17, 2016August 17, 2016

Monday/ ‘capitalism eats everything’

‘New Rule: Capitalism Eats Everything’ warned comedian/ talk show host Bill Maher of HBO, recently, of the dangers of unchecked capitalism in America. And here is a sequence of pictures from an article in the New York Times that show someone’s daily life, and how much private equity (instead of public services) has crept into every aspect of it.

August 15, 2016August 15, 2016

Sunday/ Wayde’s world record

I followed NBC’s pre-race blurb about South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk with interest. Wayne is a student in Bloemfontein, the city where I was born, and is coached by 74-year old Ans Botha.

His winning time in the 400m Men’s Final was a sensational new world record of 43.01, bettering Micheal Johnson’s record of 17 years ago in 1999.

8-14-2016 11-05-01 PM — Wayde van Niekerk winning the 400m Men’s Final on Sunday at the Games in Rio.

8-14-2016 11-06-56 PM — Ans Botha, Wayne’s coach, in the stands in Rio getting a congratulatory hug.

8-14-2016 11-05-56 PM — Van Niekerk reacts after he had crossed the finish line.

August 8, 2016August 22, 2017

Sunday/ Seattle Art Fair

I went to the Seattle Art Fair here in the city today. Check it out .. here are some of my favorites. (Pictures taken with my phone. I was a little surprised that they allowed us to take pictures. Even so, I tried not to go overboard with taking pictures).

IMG_6505 sm — Inside the Art Fair. The Fair featured galleries and exhibitors from cities across the USA, as well as from Tokyo, Vancouver and Paris. It’s only its second year, and I overheard an exhibitor say this year’s exhibit was quite a bit bigger than the first one had been.

IMG_6508 sm — This looks a little like a reinterpretation of ‘The Landing of the Pilgrims’, by Henry A. Bacon, 1877. It is called ‘In Empathy We Trust’ and is a combined effort of Elizabeth Kleinveld and Epaul Julien, both from New Orleans.

IMG_6514 sm — This is actually a coffee table with mirrors and lighting that creates the illusion of endless depth when you peer into it from the top. (I did not take note of the artist).

IMG_6526 sm — This artwork hails from Tokyo, Japan. It is called ‘Cycloid III’ by Mariko Mori. 2015, Aluminum, paint and lacquer H203×W202.1×196.2 cm.

IMG_6530 sm — Art from Tokyo with manga elements, presented by the KaiKai KiKi Gallery in New York City, but I did not see the name of the artist next to the artwork.

IMG_6531 sm — More art from Tokyo, this one by artist Shintaro Miyake, and titled ‘Court of Great King Enma’ (2014). The characters are inspired by Buddhism.

IMG_6533 sm — This is a Dale Chihuly lamp (Chihuly is a glass sculptor from Tacoma). Interesting, but a little too wild from my old house, I am afraid.

IMG_6539 sm — Can you guess the artist? Andy Warhol, of course. It is from 1983, and called ‘Eagle’.

IMG_6541 sm — The colorful silkscreen prints are called Ups and Downs (2013), by an artist called Kaws.

IMG_6547 sm — This young man is called Summer Knight (2016). Oil on canvas by artist Tatsuhito Horikoshi.

IMG_6578 sm — Wow. Three dimensional art by Christopher David White. A little creepy, no? Not something to bump into on one’s way to the kitchen for a midnight snack!

IMG_6586 sm — These are called Las Amazonas (2008) by Walter Robinson. The non-smiles on the smiley faces are upside down smiles from the Amazon logo. (Maybe the little faces represent ‘buyer’s remorse’?)

IMG_6596 sm — The entrance. The event was held in the Century Link conference center. There was a baseball game right next door at the Safeco Field stadium. Yes : I chose art over baseball. Hey, to each his own, right?

IMG_6592 sm — I really liked this black and white work of art with its child-like elements, but did not note the artist.

August 1, 2016

Saturday/ art in the Park

Here are some iPhone pictures of works of art that were on display at Volunteer Park here in my neighborhood on Saturday night. The exhibit was called Lusio and organized by artist Mollie Bryan.

IMG_6248 sm2 — These nine animated panels displayed little tiles of pink, teal and other pastels in a random scrolling pattern.

IMG_6246 sm2 — This metallic sunflower displayed changing patterns in the center. This one looks like two DNA strands to me.

IMG_6245 sm2 — I think this is called a stellated tetrahedron : a pyramid (four sides) at the core, with the base of four more pyramids on each of the core’s sides.

IMG_6244 sm2 — Glow-in-the-dark mushrooms.

IMG_6243 sm2 — And this is a crystal water fountain made from candle holders and other crystal ware, from what I can tell.

July 30, 2016August 22, 2017

Friday/ elements through the ages

I bought a nice little Japanese book (translated to English) by Bunpei Yorifuji called ‘Wonderful Life with the Elements’. In the first few pages he gives an overview of how mankind learned to extract and use more and more elements from the earth’s crust. The universe is made mostly of hydrogen and helium, but Earth (by mass) is made of iron (32.1%), oxygen (30.1%), silicon (15.1%), magnesium (13.9%), sulfur (2.9%), nickel (1.8%), calcium (1.5%), and aluminium (1.4%); with the remaining 1.2% consisting of trace amounts of other elements.

IMG_6233 sm2 — Dead or alive, humans and trees have the same elements (presumably the ‘Dead’ in the picture refers to the soil and not the tree).

IMG_6234 sm2 — Yes .. the primates did not extract any metals to make weapons. They just ate bananas and leaves.

IMG_6235 sm2 — Here we go, now the metals such as copper, tin, magnesium, calcium and phosphorous are getting extracted and used by humans.

IMG_6236 sm2 — In medieval times, iron was added, as was cobalt, gold and silver.

IMG_6237 sm2 — Finally, today we have unearthed the ‘rare earth’ metals and put them into computers and cell phones and TV sets. I would have added a U for Uranium to this chart as well. But OK : I guess we are not talking nuclear submarines or power stations here, and hopefully very, very few homes have uranium in them.

July 1, 2016July 1, 2016

Thursday/ you can never leave

(Yes, that’s a ‘Hotel California’ reference). Our Alaska Airlines ‘bird’ had a broken part last night, and the ground crew proceeded to tell us the flight was delayed from 4.00 pm to 4.30, then to 5.00, then to 7.00, then to 9.00, 9.30, and come 9.30, one more delay to 10.30. Several other flights to Seattle and Portland had already taken off by that time. We finally boarded at 10.45, wheels up at 11.00 and arrived in Seattle at 1.00 am. The veteran flyers all agreed that this was very unusual, and that they should have probably canceled the flight altogether by early evening. But with all the airplanes completely full for the morning with the 4th of July holiday weekend upon us, I guess there was no spare plane available, even on Friday morning. Anyway : made it home safe, even though it took a little longer than usual, is that not right? Then the delay really does not matter much.

IMG_5829 sm — The Qantas Airlines 747 parked on the tarmac at SFO’s International Terminal. In the background there is a little (by comparison) 737 from Alaska Airlines.

IMG_5836 sm — That’s Emirates Airlines on the far right; eventually it would leave for Dubai. The plane in the center is from tiny French airline XL Airways. (Only 7 planes in their fleet).

IMG_5838 sm — This Virgin Atlantic (I think it’s a 777), is heading out to London Heathrow. I resisted the temptation to inquire from some of the passengers what they thought of the Brexit vote!

IMG_5842 sm — .. and here’s a British Airways Airbus A380 heading out to take off over San Francisco Bay in the background. It is also headed for London Heathrow. Reports in the press are now starting to appear, that says that Airbus may stop making the A380. Forbes on June 6 : ‘Airbus A380: The Death Watch Begins’.

May 19, 2016March 2, 2018

Wednesday/ the Marina district

The Marina district is named after the San Francisco Marina on the shoreline. There is also a strip of green lawn called the Marina Green between the water and the built-up area. Buildings in the Marina district have suffered damage to earthquakes on more than one occasion the last century or so, but as Wikipedia notes : physically, the neighborhood appears to have changed very little since its construction in the 1920s.

Four of us from work went to an Italian restaurant in the Marina district tonight, and I did the very San Francisco thing of taking an ‘Uber pool’ ride home. (Smart phone app used to summon a driver, shown on the map with his name and his car, as well as whom you will share your ride with, what the cost is, and what the estimated arrival time of the car is. Wow! That’s a whole lot of technology coming together!).

IMG_5249 sm — This is the view of Pier 1 (far right), Pier 3 and Pier 5 along the Embarcadero, from the conference room we met in today, from the 20th floor in the Embarcadero Three building. The container ship in the background is probably on its way to the port of Oakland a little further into San Francisco Bay.

IMG_5259 sm — I love this 1920s Art Deco entrance to one of the condominium buildings in the Marina district. Not all of the buildings have entrances as nice as this one!

May 18, 2016May 18, 2016

Tuesday/ another blue sky day

Here are pictures from my day in San Francisco outside of working at the office.

IMG_5194 sm — I’m a little late running out for lunch : the clock tower on the Ferry Building shows a quarter to one. The unofficial lunch time for office grunts like me is 12 noon to one.

IMG_5219 sm — This is around 7.00 pm, and Street Car 1040 is going to take me from the Ferry Building to Fisherman’s Wharf where my hotel is. [From Wikipedia} This is a special streetcar in several ways. No. 1040 is the very last of almost 5,000 PCC streetcars manufactured in North America. It was delivered to Muni in 1952, completing an order of 25 PCCs from the venerable St. Louis Car Company. Of all the single-end PCCs in Muni’s current active fleet, it is the only one that has worked in San Francisco its entire life.

IMG_5225 sm — This is a sunset scene around 8 pm at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, located next to the Fisherman’s Wharf.

IMG_5239 sm — And Ghirardelli Square is right there as well. In 1893, Italy-born Domingo Ghirardelli purchased the entire city block in order to make it into the headquarters of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company. The block houses some 40 specialty shops and restaurants, and parts of it were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

April 29, 2016April 29, 2016

Friday/ Copenhagen mementos

Here are some of my mementos from my trip. I love foreign coins and banknotes, and foreign stamps as well.

IMG_5071 sm — Danish krone coins from left to right : one, two, five, ten, twenty. Exchange rate is 6.5 DKK to 1 USD. The 5 Kronor coin on top is from Sweden. Something tells me we will never, ever put holes in our coins in the USA – but I believe the holes are practical, to help blind people distinguish the ones, twos and fives from the tens and twenties.

16040730 sm — This is the entrance of ‘Danmarks Nationalbank’ on Havnegade 5, Copenhagen. It took me awhile to find it. Inside, it is like a World War II bunker, but with greenery and orchids in glass cases. This is where I bought a set of Danish proof coins.

IMG_5074 sm — And here is a collection of Danish bank notes. There is a 1,000 DKK note as well, but these are not in general circulation, and a little hefty at $US 153 equivalent to hold on to as a souvenir.

IMG_5072 sm — Here’s my Copenhagen Card, good for any public transport for 72 hrs. It was a little pricey at DKK 629/ US$ 96, but very convenient. It gives discounts to places like museums and the zoo, but I ended up not going to any of those. The stamps are all the nicest ones that the convenience store had to sell me. That’s Margrethe II of Denmark on the first one.

April 29, 2016May 2, 2016

Thursday/ arrival in Seattle

I’m home! The travelers from Frankfurt arrived into Seattle shortly after noon Pacific Time. I sat next to the window, and looked out at just the right time to see a beautiful view of the Columbia river as we crossed it in Canada, right after the British Columbia border.

Columbiarivermap sm — The Columbia River is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, Canada.

IMG_5057 sm — This is a view from 33,000 ft up of Kinbasket Lake. Look for it on the map up high, near the British Columbia border with Alberta province.

IMG_5063 sm — And a little later there was this view of a sea of mist with the snow-capped mountain tops as the islands in it.

April 28, 2016May 2, 2016

Thursday/ arrival at Frankfurt airport

I made it to Frankfurt .. Next stop Seattle.

IMG_5016 sm — Here’s our arrival into Frankfurt airport, from Hamburg. In the distance a Boeing 747 is just being pushed into the hangar (for some maintenance, I’m sure).

IMG_5018 sm — And I stopped by this mean machine on the way to my gate for the flight to Seattle, the BMW i8. Competition for the Tesla? Maybe.

April 28, 2016March 2, 2018

Wednesday/ Hamburg

[From Wikipedia] Hamburg, a major port city in northern Germany, is connected to the North Sea by the Elbe River. It’s crossed by hundreds of canals, and also contains large areas of parkland. Its central Jungfernstieg boulevard connects the Altstadt (old town) and the Neustadt, passing Binnenalster lake, dotted with boats and surrounded by cafes and restaurants. Oysters and traditional Aalsuppe (soup) are local specialties.

I did the best I could with the day-and-a-half and rain/ freezing rain at times in Hamburg! I will have to try to come back in summer some time, when the weather is warmer. The HafenCity* area’s development continues, even after 15 years since it had started, and I would love to spend more time there when it had been completed.

*HafenCity is an urban center with many shops, restaurants, hotels and cultural venues as well as rising visitor numbers. More than 2,000 people now live in HafenCity as a whole; there are more than 5,000 students at the various academic institutions; upwards of 10,000 employees work in more than 500 businesses. It aspires to generate and use clean energy and be a model for the new cities that will have to be built around the world this century.

16040868 sm — The Rathaus (Town Hall) of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg is a spectacular work of art, inside and out. It was inaugurated in 1897.

16040874 sm — The inside of the main entrance hall in the Rathaus.

16040935 sm — This is the Alte Elbe Tunnel (the old Elbe tunnel), a tunnel that was completed by 1911 that runs under the Elbe river. It is still in use to this day : by pedestrians, bicyclists, and even the occasional car or taxi !

16040943 sm — Here is a car that had driven through the tunnel, and is entering the car elevator to get it up to street level. That HALT makes me think of the Berlin Wall and the World Wars!

16040909 sm — The U-bahn (and walking) was pretty much my only mode of transportation in Hamburg. In Copenhagen I used the bus much more, since there was a convenient bus stop right by the hotel. This is the train station at Ganzemarkt, on the U2 line.

16040953 sm — This is close by the Elbe Tunnel, stone construction on the river bank.

16040968 sm — An entrance to St Pauli U-bahn station, and by the Plante-en-Blumen Park. It was too darn cold, with an icy wind in the park! and so I spent very little time there.

16040999 sm — The U4 route goes to HafenCity Universitat, and the line and stations are much newer than the others. This green overhead light and color on the station changes to blue and purple .. and I would probably have seen more colors, if I stayed longer.

16041011 sm — A brand new truss bridge for cars and pedestrians at HafenCity.

16041043 sm — There are lots of stylish new office buildings and apartment complexes in HafenCity, such as this one.

16041022 sm — This building belongs to Anglo-Dutch multinational consumer goods company Unilever.

16041023 sm — Right next to the Unilever building, in HafenCity .. I think this is an apartment tower.

IMG_4986 sm — The entrance to one of the two new U-bahn stations at HafenCity, called Überseequartier.

IMG_4988 sm — No, it’s not a work of art (but it could be) .. lots of reflections on the way down to the U-bahn platforms of the Überseequartier station.

April 26, 2016April 27, 2016

Tuesday/ train to Hamburg

4-26-2016 10-36-11 PM — The train route from Copenhagen to Hamburg took a little under 5 hrs. That segment across the water between Denmark and Germany is where the train sits on the ferry! Amazing.

I learned on Monday night that Wednesday – the day of my scheduled departure from Frankfurt to Seattle – is going to be an ugly day at Frankfurt airport. A massive service workers’ union strike forced Lufthansa to cancel 350 flights at Frankfurt, including the one I had to get there for the Frankfurt to Seattle flight. So I pushed out my return by a day .. and thought to squeeze in one more train trip : one from Copenhagen to Hamburg. (I plan to fly early Thursday from Hamburg to Frankfurt). The train ride was quite something. When Deutsche Bahn engineers design and build tracks for their trains, they stop at almost nothing. The train track runs across bridges to cross rivers and narrow channels, and into tunnels to go through hills, or underground. And for a ferry crossing, such as the one between Denmark and Germany that crosses the Fehmarn Belt Strait, they built a train track right on the ferry’s deck, to ferry the whole freaking train across the strait. Or at least half the train. At our final station in Denmark (Roedby), the front four cars were disconnected from the rest of the train. As we reached the ferry, the train cars were run onto the ferry, passengers and all. Then we were shooed off the train (the train is locked for the ferry crossing) to go onto the ferry itself during the crossing, and we boarded the train again before the ferry docked. And the train ran off the ferry onto the track and into Puttgarden station. ‘Welcome to Germany’ announced the conductor.

IMG_4581 sm — Our stop at Naestved, the third of ten stops, on the way to Hamburg.

Here is a sequence of stills at the moment when the train runs onto the ferry (slowly, of course). 1. Approaching the ferry dec k. 2 &3. A large transportation truck drives by, also going onto the ferry. 4. My train car about to enter into the ferry. 5. Almost inside; an attendant is keeping an eye on the train. 6. Inside the ferry. 7. A tour bus has entered as well. 8. Almost done. 9. Coming to a stop.

IMG_4660 sm — I’m standing on just outside the train and took a panorama shot of the train & heavy vehicle deck. There is a car deck above us, and the on the top decks is where the passengers hang out and shop and dine and enjoy the views while the ferry crosses.

16040848 sm — Here is what our ferry looks like. This is one crossing to the other side.

16040853 sm — Approaching the German side of the crossing. I had to go downstairs and board the train immediately after I took the picture.

16040894 sm — This is the inside of Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (main train station) some time after our arrival. My train was a white Intercity Express train, and had left already.

16040897 sm — And here is a view of the outside of Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. It opened in 1906. It handles some 480,000 passengers a day, making the station the busiest in Germany and after the Gare du Nord in Paris, the second busiest in Europe.

April 26, 2016March 2, 2018

Monday/ train to Malmö

4-26-2016 5-45-01 AM — The Øresund Bridge connects Copenhagen and Malmo, and was completed in 2000 at a cost of €2.6 billion. The bridge made a big difference to the economy of Malmo.

I could see a bridge far away from my hotel room and discovered that it is the Øresund Bridge to Malmö in Sweden : a combined railway and motorway bridge across the Øresund strait between Sweden and Denmark. The bridge runs nearly 8 kilometres from the Swedish coast to the artificial island of Peberholm in the middle of the strait. So! I have to go, I thought, and besides, my feet and legs needed a break from walking all over the city of Copenhagen in between bus rides and train rides. I literally just had time to make the ride out there, look around the Central Station for 15 minutes, and then catch the train back again.

16040763 sm — This is the grand old post office building across from the Malmo Central Station. Looks like the right side’s copper tower and dome is getting renovated.

16040781 sm — The original, old building of Malmo Central Station opened in 1856.

16040784 sm — And here is the new extension that had been added. I think it opened in 2011.

16040787 sm — This is a brand new building right next to the Central Station, still under construction. I think it is for a drug company.

IMG_4467 sm — Hmm! An M&M candy machine right there at Copenhagen Main Station in the 7-11. (Why don’t we have these in the USA? But maybe that is a good thing for me, that there isn’t any).