San Francisco day 5: Japantown, Missions District, Lands End

The plan for today was to visit Japantown and Lands End

Japantown is located 3 blocks from where we were renting a house, this made it very easy to get there :-)
There are a bunch of stores, restaurants as well as cultural showrooms and societies


Plaque to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Kanrin Maru



The Kanrin Maru, was the first Japanese ship ever to cross the Pacific, and its arrival in San Francisco made history

Some street signs in Japanese

Webster



Buchanan (Osaka Way)



These are 4 different pictures I put together from signs that are on various spots



I came back to Japantown for 5 minutes at night, that is why these 2 pictures are nightshots

The Peace Pagoda



A restaurant in restaurant row



The fillmore music venue



Some interesting houses




Mural near the fillmore for the Boom Boom Room


Towards the Mission district, we passed City Hall


Rogue One mural in the mission district


In the Mission District I could not believe how many homeless people were roaming around. I was talking to a driver about this and he said there are a lot of them in San Francisco because of the weather. According to the driver, in the 1980s, a lot of mental institutions were closed and the people who were in the institutions were let out. A lot of them ended up homeless

We took public transportation to Lands End. By the way having lived in New York, the public transportation system in San Francisco is a total mess. They really should come up with some kind of clipper card which you can by at every station. right now for the Muni you have to buy tickets there for Bart somewhere else etc etc


Panorama from the visitor center




Sutro Baths



The Sutro Baths was a large, privately owned public saltwater swimming pool complex, this is what is left now


A person meditating



With a view like that, I am sure his troubles seemed far away even if for a little while


A giant camera obscura

The beach with the black rocks



We then hiked on the Coastal Trail, here are some pictures I took from that hike


Mile Rock Beach

A hazy view of the Golden Gate bridge




Another panorama




Eagle Point



Hidden labyrinth at Eagle's Point, constructed by local artist Eduardo Aguilera

This what it for the day

San Francisco day 4: Sausalito and Muir Woods

Today's plan was to go to Sausalito and Muir Woods

We started to walk down towards the ferry, on the way there we passed the new SalesForce Tower which is still under construction



Salesforce Tower, formerly known as the Transbay Tower, is a 1,070-foot (326 m)[1] office skyscraper under construction in the South of Market district of downtown San Francisco. It is located at 415 Mission Street between First and Fremont Streets, next to the Transbay Transit Center site. Salesforce Tower is the centerpiece of the San Francisco Transbay redevelopment plan


We also saw the following sign on the wall of a church we passed


We bought the tickets and had some time to spare so we looked around at the farmers market, and who do we see?




Yep, that is Andrew Zimmern, host of one of my favorite shows Bizzare Foods. He is in town filming for this new show which will air in 2018

We planned to take the first ferry, it was delayed by an hour, so our plans were a little derailed
By the time we made it to Sausalito, it was nice and sunny



Once we got of the boat, I saw this man with a dog playing guitar



We then rushed to find the shuttle to Muir Woods. The ride to Muir Woods is a little scary, a lot of people get freaked out. There are only 2 lanes and you are really close to just toppling over down the mountain only to die in a horrible accident
The ride was about 30 minutes or so





Now I have to warn you, none of these pictures are doing Muir Woods any justice. You have to be there to appreciate the beauty and size of Muir Woods. The tallest tree is 379.3 feet/115.61 meters, this is taller than the Statue of Liberty




Trees with some humans for scale



Some more trees



Steps into the woods



My kids in front of some trees

We spent around 3 hours in Muir Woods but would have stayed longer if we didn't have to catch the shuttle back to the ferry

Took this shot of a sailboat with the GoldenGate bridge in the background


Back in San Francisco I noticed this line at Tadich Grill


The Tadich Grill is a seafood restaurant located in the Financial District neighborhood of San Francisco, California, United States. It is the oldest continuously running restaurant in San Francisco

That is all for today.

San Francisco day 3: Napa Valley, Sonoma county

Today the plan was to visit Napa and Sonoma. Grgich Hills winery had a blessing of the grapes ceremony at 10 AM, so we had to leave San Francisco by 8 AM to make it in time

You can see a timelapse of us driving over the Golden Gate bridge below



We arrived at Grigich Hills Estate around 9:40 AM, the drive wasn't too bad

The sign at the entrance



American and Croatian flags at the entrance 

Below are the grapes ready to be blessed


Here is a video of the blessing ceremony


I am not sure if you can hear it or not but Mike Grgich joined the ceremony via facetime because he had some issues with his back and couldn't make it in person.

There was some food for the people attending the blessing of the grapes. As you can see there is salamis, prosciutto, cheeses, olives and crackers.



You also could get wine, I had some Chardonnay, Fume Blanc and Rose. All of them were delicious

Here are some shirts hanging to dry from people who did the grape stomping




In this video, you can see my daughter stomping the grapes


A picture of grapes on the vine


Some barrels of wine
s

Wine tanks or perhaps even fermentation tanks?


Some more wine barrels



There was a small contents, you had to guess how many corks were in this bottle



A bust of Mike Grgich



I spent some time talking to Mike's daughter Violet. We talked about the winery that the Grgich family started in Croatia, the grapes itself and some other things

I also went into the store and purchased some wine. Now I have to figure out if I drink it here while I am still in San Francisco or do I bring it home to Princeton

I think the blessing/stomping event was very nice, I highly recommend it


Coppola Winery

Pool


The pool area was pretty packed, they have packages with cabins, towels and lounge chairs

Godfather's desk


This is the desk that was used in the Godfather movie. Pretty cool to see it in person


Car from the movie Tucker


Car from above



Costumes from some movies


View of the bar


View looking towards the vineyard



After Coppola, we went back to San Francisco had dinner and called it a day