Hotel des Arts

Monday morning arrived way too fast. Both Veronica and myself did not want to part ways from the Hilton bed, such was its comfortable hold. Finally we dragged ourselves out of bed and into the lobby to meet Sonia and Chris and others still in town for a brunch of dim sum in Chinatown. The restaurant was huge, loud, and crazy. We ate some interesting stuff to say the least. We ended up having to power walk back to the hotel in order to check it out by noon.

Veronica, Johnny and myself then trekked about 7 blocks with our bags to see if we could check into our new place, the Hotel des Arts, a boutique hotel right across the street from the Dragon Gates. I had found the place in the Lonely Planet Encounter guide for San Francisco and we had booked a room for $100 a night. We couldn’t check in, but we got a place to store our bags so we could mosey over to a café to chill and grab a beverage. The café was right around the corner from our hotel and it ended up serving a rather nice coffee. No Barefoot mind you, but it was certainly better than Starbucks. Mid-afternoon Johnny had to leave to go to the airport to make his flight. Veronica and I checked into our room and were greeted by some crazy artwork featuring Lego characters of Billy Idol, Blondie, Pat Benatar, and Gene Simmons. The unique aspect of our hotel is that every room had been individually painted by local artists, making the hotel a contemporary piece of art. Quite groovy I must admit.

For dinner, Veronica and I walked from our hotel up to North Beach. Our destination was The Stinking Rose, however we made a slight detour to City Lights, the quintessential San Francisco bookstore. Their selection was immense, not to mention impeccable, and I was rendered helpless in my ability to say no to buying a book. We escaped the Mecca of Bookstores only slightly more weighed down and resumed our quest to procure some tasty Italian for our tummies. The Stinking Rose has two locations, and I had actually eaten at the one in Beverly Hills about 6 years back. The San Francisco branch was different from LA in that it didn’t look like a Vampire hangout. Instead of being adorned in velvet the walls were painted brightly with murals of San Francisco. But I digress, their Italian food was so delectably delicious that we both stuffed our faces like we were kids at a Cici’s Pizza buffet. After rolling out of the restaurant we had a nice walk through Chinatown on our way back to the hotel. It felt nice to try and get a little circulation before heading back to our hotel room to pass out.

We awoke Tuesday morning ready to sight see, and our first order of business was to head to Telegraph Hill. The Coit Tower is perched up on top of the hill, and we were told that it was something worth seeing. We arrived at the tower about 9:15 am to find out it didn’t open till 10:00, so we hung around taking photos of the Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the statue of Christopher Columbus. The view from the top of the tower was quite impressive, and after getting our fair share of photos, we made our way down the Filbert steps (which our guidebook told us are quite famous) and in the process were made insanely jealous of some of the houses lining the path. We walked back through downtown and stopped off at What’s Up Dog (great name, eh?) for a hot dog. What can we say, we miss American junk food! After a delicious hot dog we made our way to the MOMA. I had been really looking forward to seeing this museum, but I have to say I was a tad disappointed. Not that it was a let down, the paintings and photographs were all top notch, but I found the 4th Floor’s display of video art to be quite pathetic. Perhaps I just don’t get it?

After a brief stop at our hotel, we took the MUNI out to Ocean Beach. The waves were a junky wind swell of about 2 foot, and it looked cold even though the sun was out. We walked back a few blocks to our destination, Mollusk Surf Shop. Surf shops and bookstores are my vice, everyone knows this, and I continued my consumer-ish ways and bought two t-shirts and a surf dvd for cheap. STOKED! Hopped back on the MUNI and made our way into Haight Ashbury. Feeling a bit puckish, we found the Escape from New York pizza and had some of the tastiest pizza on God’s Green Earth. Delicious would be an understatement. Amoeba Records was right next door so we went in and I fell victim to the overpowering sonic lust that Amoeba conjures in the souls of music lovers. Yeah, I ended up buying a record. And it gets worse, we stopped at another clothing store and I found a pair of sunglasses that I actually liked and fit my face halfway decent. Stopped in a few more stores before we realized we should be getting back to the hotel to wait for our friend Christina’s phone call.

That night we met up with Christina at her favorite burrito joint for some tasty Mexican food. Christina then took us back to her house in Bernal Heights and we were sickened with jealousy by the views from her deck in the back. The view was a full 240-degree panoramic view of the city. After hanging out on the deck we went on a nature walk up to the top of the hill. The views of the city from atop Bernal Heights was EPIC! Included is a blurry photo of the view, which I wish had a tripod for.

Wednesday morning was the day we had made reservations to go over to Alcatraz. It reminded me of going to visit Pearl Harbor in that there were a ton of people. We enjoyed taking the tour and having corny photos of us taken behind bars. Good times. Since we were back at Fisherman’s Wharf, we had another In-N-Out burger. Probably not the best move since we rode bikes right afterwards across the Golden Gate Bridge. I have to say, riding bikes over the bridge was one of the most enjoyable parts to our trip. We were blessed with a beautiful, sunny day. Not too hot and not too cold, but just perfect. That night we met up with an old coworker of mine from OREXCO, Jamie, for some drinks at the House of Shields. Cool little bar in SOMA, and afterwards we went and had Vietnamese food at Tulan, which is located on Sleazy Sixth. As the name implies, this area was a tad ghetto, but it literally was only a street away from a very nice area. The food was tasty, and Julia Childs is a fan of the place as well.

I was bummed as we woke up on Thursday morning. I was nowhere near ready for our vacation to be over. Such is life though. Our itinerary for the day was pretty loose, and the first order of business was to head to the best coffee shop in San Fran, Blue Bottle Coffee Shop over in Hayes Valley. After a tasty coffee (but can it beat Barefoot, I just don’t know) we ambled over to City Hall and took a ton of photos. After checking out of our hotel we went shoe shopping for Veronica before meeting up with Kua (Veronica’s last roommate before me) and her boyfriend. It was fun getting to catch up, and after a nice last meal we took the BART out to the airport.

Had a mellow weekend here in Manly. Slept a lot and did laundry, all in anticipation of getting back to work. Bummer dude.