Two sides of San Francisco

Some pertinent observations from two days of walking the city

So both yesterday and today, I spent considerable time walking around San Francisco. In terms of weather, both days have been rather wonderful, with the sun beating down and the weather being just about chilly enough to be comfortable.

I’m staying in the Holiday Inn on Van Ness Avenue, just about north of the infamous Tenderloin District. Tenderloin is infamous for the profusion of homeless people thronging its streets, and I’ve got sufficient warnings from different people to not venture there, especially at night.

On Wednesday, I was meeting Zombie for dinner at the edge of the Tenderloin district, and while it was nice when I went there, by the time we got done the area was already full of crazy people stuttering around and muttering to themselves. I walked back quickly that night.

Anyway, this aside aside, yesterday I decided to go East, and North. A lot of the route was based on recommendations from Arun Simha, though I added my own seasoning to what he had suggested. So I went through Chinatown, to North Beach, went up to the Coit Tower (though I didn’t go inside), and finally to the extreme north of SF to Ghirardelli Square. After that I tired out (I walked some 12km yesterday) and just took a bus back to my hotel.

This is the approximate route I took (I didn’t turn on any workout on my Apple Watch, so this is what I recreated on Google Maps) :

Today, for the sake of completeness, I decided to go South and West. I walked South down Van Ness Avenue, to the Civic Centre, and then along Mission Street. I kept getting the creeps and made a quick detour through Duboce Street to the Lower Haight, before I had lunch in the Hayes Valley. A lunch and a nice ice cream later, I just headed back to my hotel.

I’d turned on an “outdoor walk” on my Apple Watch today, and this is what it recorded:

The two walks could not have been more different. It’s not funny how much I enjoyed yesterday’s walk (despite all the heights and depths), and how much I hated most of today’s. Most of it had to do with the parts of town that I went through, and what was there. It had to do with the density and nature of establishments that one came across on the walks.

Yesterday, I took tonnes of pictures. Today I took none. Zero. There was nothing worth photographing today, if I excluded some crazy looking homeless people wandering the street. A few pertinent observations in bullet points, along with a few photos:

• This is worth iterating and reiterating. San Francisco is an extremely hilly city. Perhaps the only city I’ve been to that’s more hilly than this is Amman - which is so hilly that there are staircases for pedestrians all round. I went “up” (literally) Washington Street yesterday, and this is what I saw:

  

• Even growing up in Banashankari third stage (I like to boast that the first thing I learnt when I learnt to drive a car was to start it on a slope - given my house was on a steep slope, though nothing like what you see above) hadn’t prepared me for the slopes of SF

• I passed by a couple of popular eateries, like The Coffee Roastery on Washington Street and Golden Gate Bakery in Chinatown. Both had lines as long as Hanuman’s tail, and the bakery hadn’t even opened. I had initially planned to stop at both, but just walked on.

• Chinatown has a very very different vibe - in fact it makes you think you are in Asia. The whole area has a nice aroma (like the “grandhige angaDis” of Bangalore - these are small shops selling spices and pooja items). It is really dense. For most of my walk there was hardly anyone around me. Chinatown was dense and bustling. It was happening in a way that I hadn’t seen anywhere else in San Francisco.

• I walked up Telegraph Hill on my way to Coit Tower. Again insane slopes, and you have houses on these slopes. Here is a picture from in front of one of them (and notice that by this time my jacket is off)

  

• I walked up to Coit Tower (again lots of “big up and downs”), and saw the Golden Gate Bridge from there. I have a meeting in Sausalito on Monday, and should actually be riding (on a bus) the Golden Gate Bridge that day. Excited about that.

• Then I went to this place called “North Beach” (no clue why it’s called that, since there is no semblance of beach there). It’s an Italian dominated area. I found a bar selling only gluten-free beers (and I had a pretty good IPA there - I hadn’t had good beer in Bangalore for a very long time, and have more than made up for it on this trip. The IPAs all round SF are excellent, though I don’t like Hazy IPAs).

• I found a line outside a pizza shop selling pizza by the slice, and had the most wonderful pizza there. The only pity is I took only one slice, and I’d walked far enough by the time I’d finished eating to not bother returning.

• North Beach again was fairly densely populated, though nothing like ChinaTown. I quite like those parts of SF. And they also seem rather safe (I guess the density ensures that).

• Yesterday’s walk ended at the touristy Pier 39 and Ghirardelli Squares. I just walked on, looked for good coffee and ice cream, failed to find those, bought some Ghirardelli chocolates and came back to my hotel

• Today I started walking south on Van Ness avenue, and then went East to the Civic Centre Plaza. I could see the odd homeless person there, but the area was dense enough to not worry. In the Plaza itself, I saw an outdoor Zumba class was on.

• Then there was a farmers market there, selling fruits and vegetables. Like I saw on Twitter recently, “we cut out the middleman so that we can sell you the stuff at even higher prices”

• This is where I made my big mistake, taking a turn into Mission Street, thinking I’ll go to the Mission District to see some street art (someone please tell me the difference between murals and graffiti). The whole place was depressing.

• Basically there are hardly any shops there. This means there is no activity, especially on a Sunday. And that means that no “normal people” come there, giving the place an unsafe feel. At one point I saw one homeless guy ranting and shouting on the street. I quickly crossed the road to walk on the other side.

• Soon I gave up on going to the Mission District - the creeps just weren’t worth it. I pivoted into Duboce to see the Lower Haight area. By the time I got there I was starting to feel hungry, and made my way to Hayes Valley thinking I’ll get a coffee. I stumbled upon a nice looking Greek restaurant before I found a coffee shop, belted lunch, got some ice cream nearby and returned.

San Francisco is fundamentally a nice city but some of the parts have been ruined. There is enough documentation about that so I don’t need to repeat. I’m here for another two days before I shift base to the South Bay (not funny how many of my meetings have been there). If I choose to walk around again (unlikely given work and stuff), it will be towards the Chinatown and North Beach areas. Actually Japan Town and Pacific Heights (across the road from my hotel) are quite nice to walk through as well.