San Francisco Union Square January 2005

The pictures in this post seem to have a blurriness to me, even though the actual pictures are very clear, with the exception of the last one. I think you can click on them to see how clear and detailed they really are. I think I uploaded them incorrectly into blogger so I apologize in advance.


From our hotel, it was about 5-6 blocks away to walk to San Francisco's Union Square. This area is like the hub of downtown with all its fancy shops and restaurants.



Some of the buildings are more modern than the area we were staying at. This was Saks 5th Ave building. I am not sure what building is in the background but it looked quite nice.



The building looked very prominent. This is a zoomed in picture from the same angle. The building has a good view overlooking the city that's for sure.

Back to Saks 5th Ave. We took some pictures of their window displays showing the latest fashion for that year.



The first picture is to our left side of the building facing Union Square. They look like evening wear gowns.



The second picture is to our right side of the building entrance. You can kind of see the partial entrance. Again, the window displays have more designer dresses. I am sure they were all priced in the thousands.


Across the way, this is a nice shot of some shops. From left to right is Tiffany's, Williams Sonoma, Levi's, and then Niketown. I believe the rails closer to us in an entrance way to underground parking.

I wondered if those stores occupied every floor of the buildings, or if some of those floors were used for private residences. That would be a great place to have a loft, don't you think?



On this street, you can see the hustle and bustle of the city. There's the Disney Store that also houses the Borders books and music store. On the left side is the Westin St. Francis Hotel I believe. Again, in the background you see some nice architectural detail of the past in those buildings. It's amazing they still have those fire escapes on the outside of some buildings.



This wide shot captures the taller and more modern buildings in the background. I think that is the business district, but am not completely sure. What is also interesting in this area is that it is not full of hills. It is very flat and walker friendly.





This is another shot of those buildings in the back of Saks 5th Ave. They are definitely over 40 to 50 years old. I think if I changed this to a black and white photo, it might even capture the mood of that decade when these were the newest buildings.



There is also plenty of art all over the city. This looks like a roman statue. The cloud backdrop kind of frames it perfectly. Sorry, I don't anything about this piece. But it surely is an attention getter.

We did step out later in the evening and it is funny how the city atmosphere changes. I felt like the city was resting. The lights on these older buildings seem to help capture that mood.



This is a close up of the top of the same building. Very peaceful.




It did rain on our visit on and off. You can see some evidence in the modern park benches. Very sleek metal design. It probably can withstand most vandalism too.




You can feel the city go to sleep as the number of people dwindle. The rain also seems to give it a cleansed feeling.

San Francisco January 2005

I used to live in San Francisco when my father first relocated our family to America. We only lived there for 2-3 years in the 1970s.

Well, back in 2004 I worked for a collections company that is now defunct, but I had won a lottery drawing from an incentive contest. I was a manager and your team had to produce x amount of dollars to get a ticket entry. The other managers had more tickets than me, but I was the lucky one who won the package. It was 2 airline tickets, hotel stay, and $500 spending money. Those were the good old days.

Here are some pictures of the hotel we stayed at below:



So this is a straight shot from our window. I really like the architectural style of these buildings. They really take you back to a certain era.




Then if you peak out the edge of the windows you can see the corner of the block in both directions. This was our first trip together to San Francisco, so everything was exciting to look at.




That is the famous Warwick Hotel. Many of the streets are one way and extremely steep. I am glad my rental was an automatic and not a stick shift, so I didn't have to worry about rolling backwards. Ha ha.





On the other side, another hotel and restaurant. There was also a parking lot. I think it was $35 a night to park our rental car which seems expensive to me, but that is the normal amount for the downtown area.




From this window high above, you can still hear all the traffic, especially the buses passing by as they open their doors to let people on and off. You can actually hear the people from below too, yelling and screaming. If you are wondering why they are yelling, it is because there are many homeless people in the downtown area. Probably more so now than 5 years ago.

It didn't bother either my wife or me because we are use to the city noise. You can't see it in this picture but there are many shops, restaurants, and delis at the bottom of most of these buildings. I purchased our water and snacks from Walgreen's because it was substantially cheaper than the hotel prices.



What I enjoyed was the all walking convenience to these places. There was a Jewish deli but I can't remember the name of it down the street. My wife and I took these pictures of their pastries on display.



I think we purchased about 6 pastries to take back to the hotel to enjoy with our meals and coffee. I may have possibly bought a dozen because they looked great and were made fresh daily. This was the time in my life I was a bit overweight and had a healthy appetite.

Looking at these pictures, I can remember they were delicious.



One great thing about the city is you can walk around and just sightsee by foot. I remember there was a film crew doing some movie when we visited on this street. It was on the other side, and they had police officers on motorcycles monitoring and directing traffic. I didn't see any famous celebrities.




A few blocks away you could look down and see Alcatraz Island in the background. You can also see how high we are and how steep the hills are. I really like those old buildings. Crazy how they have all those old telephone and electric lines hanging above. I sometimes wonder how nice it would be to live here.



Then a few blocks in another direction you can see another famous landmark called the world's most crookedest street. There were many cars slowly snaking down the path.

I thought this was a great picture my wife took because you can see the different buildings in a nice city view. Again, look how high and steep the streets are. We drove and did not walk here to get the full effect of driving down the landmark. Again, a fun and free tourist landmark. The cool and cloudy weather was definitely to our liking.



These pictures were not all taken on the same day. I am just putting it in a nice story context. This landmark is the famous pointy Transamerica building. Notice the one way street. I am not a fan of the one way streets because I am paranoid I will drive the wrong way.



We thought this Indian restaurant was weird that they served breakfast with beer. Who knew?




We drove down towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Along the bottom they have the San Francisco Maritime Museum. I can't remember if we got out to explore here or just took a passing picture of it.

It's pretty cool that you could get around the entire city by bus. They were plentiful everywhere.



That is the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. We did stop by this park to check it out and take some more photos. I remember there were a ton of eucalyptus trees here and they smelled great. It may have just rained too, because the air seemed so clean and crisp too.



Across the bay, you can see the downtown skyline. Right in the center you can see the Transamerica Tower. This area has a great walking trail. It wasn't crowded or anything and the people here are always friendly.



These are some funny looking trees in the same area. Very tall and sleek. This whole area had tons of different trees.



This rock is on a look out point. I remember seeing this as a young boy but it had tons of sea lions and seals laying all over it. The time we went was a bit disappointing because it was empty except some sea gulls.



Towards the left of me are nice condos with views of the bay. These are probably all worth a million dollars since they have million dollar views. The weird thing was that big windmill on a Dutch looking building in the background.

It must be nice that you can walk along this beach everyday. That is if you owned one of these nice condos.

Now look at the next two pictures of these cliffs. It has some trees growing in them. These are big tree and the cliffs are over 100 feet high.





There are no people or cars to put it into perspective but this was actually an amazing sight. Especially when you are at the bottom looking up. I don't know if you can actually drive to the top or not, but those views would be spectacular.




I have tons of pictures from this trip so I will post some more later. Hope you enjoyed them.

Cheers!