A Woey Loy Goey Birthday

After a few years of purposefully solitary activity on my birthday, I had forgotten how nice it is to spend the day with friends. On this day, my friend Mike was nice enough to fetch me at my hotel in San Francisco, even hanging out with me while I finished up a project I had to send off before hitting the road.

After that was finished, we hit the Chinatown area. First, we saw a park where ladies were playing cards:



Strangely, there was a sign near it that prohibits loitering, although the park was filled with benches that seem to invite--you guessed it--loitering:



I loved seeing the bright and colorful storefronts like these:





Mike, being Mike, delighted in the fact that Chinatown has its own Citibank branch:



Because Mike attended grad school in Wisconsin, I found it amusing to photograph him next to a barrel of Wisconsin cheese:



I also found these hat hooks amusing . . . they seemed to be waiting for the restaurant workers to return to them:



We scoured Chinatown for just the right place for a birthday lunch, and when I saw this sign, I knew it was the place:



Inside, there was a lunch counter, though we opted for a table:



Mike was disappointed that there was no dim sum cart (I have never seen one before), but I didn't miss it because the food was excellent and I enjoyed the feeling of being in Mel's Diner crossed with a Chinese restaurant. The food wasn't bad either, as evidenced by the fact that we polished off this much of it:



We walked off our excellent lunch by exploring a bit more of Chinatown, ultimately walking to the end for a peep at the adjacent Italian neighborhood:



Reluctantly, we moved along, leaving the festive Chinatown neighborhood for other destinations:



On the way, I admired this art deco building:





Mike was dead set on showing me Lombard Street, and on the way we took in some fabulous views--I particularly liked this one, as you can see:





Lombard Street itself was beautiful, both the road, with its bricks, flowers and bushes, and the houses along the way:









We headed over to Coit Tower, which Mike would offer a great vantage point from which to see the city:





I was amused by this pink van covered in magnetic letters:



Coit Tower was just what I had hoped for, offering splendid views:











I thought this tree was really cool:



And this bush as well:



The inside of the tower, reached after passing this statute in the circle drive.



offered lovely painted murals--can you tell which one contains a live person?







We returned outside, to see more wonderful views:









Then we were off to Fisherman's Wharf, where we spied Alcatraz and other interesting things like this:







This snack stand appealed to me:



As did the musician playing near it:



We spent a while watching seals:



This one was my favorite:



I could have watched them wiggle around all day--it was certainly a more interesting sight than the penguins I had to watch for 12 hours as a project in my college Animal Behavior class:



We moved on to see some human entertainment:





and boats:



and yet another view:



and a fruit stand:



and a family swaying for their adventure video:



We spied another musician, this one playing very melodic tunes:





Then we were off again, speeding toward the Bay Bridge, which would take us to Livermore to visit some dear friends from college . . . and I will write about that, and my great birthday evening, in my next installment!