We went to San Francisco for my birthday this weekend. We stayed at the Omni Hotel in the Financial District. The first night (Friday, Sep. 21) we ate dinner at the Mona Lisa. There's usually a long line, but we walked right in and got the only table available. That's not normal. The food is always fantastic, so I recommend this place to anyone. It's just a bit pricey. Three of us ate for $95.00.
On Saturday David and Bethany shopped for my birthday. Then we met up with my brother and ate lunch at Calzone's. We went walking through and around Fisherman's Wharf and on the way to Tattoo City for David to get his tattoo, someone urinated on a bunch of us from the balcony above. We called the police. It was pretty gross. So David took 3 hours to get this gorgeous wolf tattoo that he designed. Bethany stayed and watched while they did David's tattoo. While they were both doing the tattoo thing, my brother and went to MOMA and to a DaVinci exhibit. The exhibit wasn't even DaVinci's art, it was actually an exhibit of items put together to show how DaVinci's inventions operate, and all of the paintings were replicas. Nothing was authentic, so we were pretty upset after having paid about $20.00 a person to see it. The MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) was pretty nice, but we only had about 20 minutes to check it out before it closed that day. We got to see a
frozen BMW exhibit at the MOMA (scroll down to the bottom). The temperature was 18° in the freezer that this exhibit was in. It was very strange and extremely cold.
Dinner on Saturday evening was at our favorite Chinese hole-in-the-wall; House of Nan King. The owner actually comes out and takes orders too. If you haven't eaten there before when you order, they sometimes yank your menu out of your hands and say "I'll take care of you." And if you have eaten there before they sometimes yank your menu out of your hands and say "I'll take care of you." The food is great. I hate onions, but the onion cakes are one of my favorites. This is also a great restaurant to eat at while in SF. It's also not very expensive.
Sunday morning (Sep. 23rd-my birthday) we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant "Bob's." I had eggs benedict and they were very good. We went to the DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park via cab. Just for information for those of you with large groups, it's difficult to find a cab that fits 5 people. We ended up in a mini van that only seats 4. Pat (my brother) sat partway on one side in the back with Bethany and Brandyn in the middle and I sat on the other side (partway off the seat). It was the most uncomfortable taxi ride I've ever had in my life.
The DeYoung Museum is so big, it takes hours to see. There was an exhibit on New Guinea tribes. Lots of things on display there that were pretty frightening, including shrunken skulls (real ones at that). I wouldn't want to be locked up at night with that stuff. I refused to see the African exhibit in the other hall after seeing the New Guinea exhibit. The items just weren't anything I enjoyed.
The day was overcast, so we weren't able to see the Golden Gate Bridge from the
viewing tower at the DeYoung. (the right hand photo at the top shows the tower) After the museum we went back to the wharf and ate at Tarantino's. The fish & chips were very good.
After lunch we took the Taylor Street Trolley to the Fairmont Hotel afterwards to check out the Tonga Room to get photos for a friend who is writing a book using the TR as part of it. The TR is amazing! It's an upscale Polynesian type restaurant and bar (Hurricane Bar). There's a ship in the middle of the place. It's very dark but very inviting. There's a photo at
the Fairmont's website shown on the top left. You can also see another photo in the 'slideshow', click on slide 05.
We ended up leaving town around 5:00 pm. Overall the weekend was nice. We'll be back to the city after Christmas for 4 days. I can't wait.
BTW....I got an iPod Touch 16gb for my birthday. : )