Day 2: San Francisco

Things never go as planned even when you don’t have plans. That sums up today’s adventure up to San Francisco on Caltrain. It all began with the morning Baby Bullet.

The train looked so clean, but the windows showed otherwise.

No worries, a wet paper towel and all was good for the journey north.

I ended up biking up towards Fisherman’s Wharf to grab lunch. I was going to head over to Hyde St Pier to see another boat, but found myself wandering over to the pier just west of it. The decaying pier was barricaded on the sides, the walls falling apart. But what looks down on its luck is just a disguise of the beauty it has to offer. One can think of the decay as the sign of many visitors and use over the years offering a beauty view of the bay.

Down the pier there were a few benches and I perched there watching the Golden Gate Bridge slowly disappear into the fog. Or rather, the fog flowing over it and creating a curtain that was halfway across the gate. Who knew the Golden Gate Bridge only had one tower!

The Emirates Team from New Zealand was racing around the bay, and down towards Alcatraz.

I never did make it onto a ship. I biked towards the Golden Gate and was stopped by a friend unexpectedly. We chatted a bit and then said farewell. The Marina green offered a great shot of the boats.

By that time the Golden Gate was alternating in her never ending relationship with the fog.

I made my way back down to Pier 27/29 for the afternoon concert. Mister Loveless played two sets for close to two hours.

Lastly I found a couple of shots for a timelapse video and finished the day looking up at the clouds passing over the America’s Cup Pavillion and Coit Tower up on the hill.

On the way south, the side opposite the sunset offered a surprising treat, a rainbow. Always keep your eyes open for the unexpected beauty of the Bay Area going past the window at 65mph.

I learned a couple of things today. Even if you’re intentionally taking pictures of yourself, people may sometimes ask if you’d like them to take your picture. That outgoing kind gesture is interesting to note in today’s selfish world with many looking down at their cell phones. The one person who asked today was waiting for her family to arrive. She had a little time to waste and did a kind gesture for a complete stranger. Then you have the countless others who ask for their picture to be taken. Or rather, “make a picture” of themselves as one traveller asked me.

I was standing next to two strangers who asked each other for a photo. The lady from Los Angeles had asked another lady from Melbourne, and now living in the Bay Area, to take her picture. She had picked the one person who didn’t hesitate to share photo tips. The amateur looking photographer said she had learned from someone working at Apple that it is best to take a zoomed out photo and later on zoom and crop them. And to take several pictures. She even asked if it was okay to have someone in the background. A little too involved in taking a picture, or just really conscious of the quality of the shot?

I don’t know if the clouds are this fantastic everyday or if this weather feature is being caused by the warmish weather. Or being more conscious of the surroundings has the side effect of noticing beautiful weather. Either way, it’s the Bay Area microclimate that has been fascinating over the past two days. And all you have to do is look up to enjoy it.

I also discovered today that if you look like you know what you’re doing, people will randomly ask you questions. When does the America’s Cup Race start? Sorry, that ended three hours ago.

As the day ended and I was shooting the clouds over Coit Tower, an older man stopped, said he was into photography and asked what I was shooting. A timelapse of the clouds, I told him. We both shared in the amazement of the clouds, and he mentioned he had hundreds of photos of the clouds. If only he knew who had stopped to talk with.