With our City Pass booklet we started the day by visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Neither of us are great fans of much of modern art, though we enjoyed some aspects. I particularly liked the Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera since 1870 exhibition, and not because of the amount of nudity it contained. There is no doubting the splendour of the building and the design of space throughout the museum. We had a light lunch in Caffe Museo, asparagus soup for me and a fruit scone for Janet.
We wandered around Yerba Buena Gardens afterwards, taking in the Martin Luther King Jnr Memorial and waterfall and the excellent views it afforded of both MOMA and the Financial District. The area was filled with thousands of comic book fans visiting San Francisco for the weekend for the 25th Wondercon comic book, science fiction and movie convention at the Moscone Centre South. Many were dressed as their favourite characters and all carried shopping bags packed with merchandise. San Francisco has more than its fair share of interesting looking characters but that number was magnified this weekend by aliens and superheroes stalking the streets.
As we were in the area we moved on to AT & T Park and the San Francisco Giants Dugout Store. Given the proximity of the opening home stand it was very busy. TV screens were transmitting the third game in the opening road trip of the season, and as we arrived Giants were 8-0 ahead in the 7th inning, a vast improvement on their first two sloppy one run defeats at the hands of the LA Dodgers. By the time we left they had stretched their lead to 10-0 in the ninth and the atmosphere in the store was upbeat.
Although Janet and I could have spent thousands on replica shirts, jackets and other paraphernalia, I confined my purchase to a t-shirt, DVD and magazine. We do, however, intend to return before we leave town on Friday, so the credit card should not rest easy just yet.
Walking back into town we had frappuccinos at Starbucks (yes I was in that much need of a “frozen concoction” on a warmer, brighter afternoon than had been forecast), surrounded by characters from Star Wars, Marvel and assorted Japanese franchises. A final trip to soon to be closed Border’s bookstore in Union Square completed our afternoon. Whilst not quite as pathetic looking as its counterpart in Santa Cruz, the top floor and cafe were closed and everything was at least 50% off. Regular announcements advised that deals were available too on fixtures and fittings.
The high – or low – spot of the day? I ate a hot dog on Market Street, my first meat hot dog in over 30 years! And it was good! Does that now make me an American?
We had initially planned to go out for dinner again but mutual tiredness, my persistent cold and the undeniable pleasure of being able to wind down in our own place (which is why we rented an apartment in the first place), led us to decide to buy dinner from the supermarket, fresh catfish which we had with home made chips aka fries.
Tony Quarrington 