We arrived at Coit Tower, a bit sweaty from the uphill hike. Coit Tower is an Art Deco style 210 foot high tower which sits on top of Telegraph Hill and affords incredible views of the city. It was built in the 30s by a wealthy crazy lady with a fixation for firemen (this may or may not be the whole story), and the inside walls are adorned with murals from 1935, painted as part of a city art competition. They look like they have been painted in poster paints or pencil and laboriously coloured in, which adds greatly to their charm. They are very much of their era (the 30s Depression, rise of Nazism in Europe etc) and depict hard graft and farming, and, interestingly, I thought they looked quite similar to Lenin and Stalinist Russian propaganda posters.
So, we paid $4.50 to take the lift to the penultimate floor. It is 21 flights of winding stairs, the very cheerful lift operator hold us and the stairs used to be open to use but most people struggled (and also they could make more money this way - he didn't say that though). It was crowded but the views we were rewarded with, with the wind whipping our hair made the tourists bearable. We took a slight detour on the way down to go down the Greenwich and Filbert steps, where green parrots and wealthy San Franciscans live. We could hear the parrots but didn't manage to see any, but we were too busy concentrating in the pain in our knees from the steepness of the steps. A quick scan of the map revealed the quick detour now meant a long walk to China town. We popped into the famous City Lights bookstore (famous for the Beat generation - before my time, I could research this but I can't be bothered) on the way. More importantly to me, it was a proper bookshop, full of reassuring dark wood, and nooks and crannies filled to the rafters with books, and chairs dotted around here and there for you to rest your weary feet, and inhale the stories. No rest for us intrepid explorers though, as it was onwards to the Fortune Cookie Factory.
Factory is a word which doesn't describe this place at all! It can be located down one of busy Chinatown's many alleyways, and is a tiny pokey shop, seemingly guarded by an old man sat outside ushering people in. It is the sort of place which would be crowded with 4 people in it, and they brook no tourist nonsense. There is a prominent sign declaring a photo will cost you 50c and no sooner had the giggling teens in front of us entered, they were abruptly asked whether they were going to buy anything. They made a hasty retreat. I grabbed a bag of cookies in which to buy more time ($4.50 for a bag as big as my head). The production line consisted of 2 women, one who was doing something in the background, and the other making cookies in front of your eyes, by pulling a circle of cookie off a hot place, putting a fortune inside and shaping it with a metal rod thingy. It is all done at speed as as soon as the cookie hardens, it can't be shaped. There is a bucket of cookies that never were which are given out as free samples. Yum yum.
The number 30 bus took us away from Chinatown and to the Yerba Beuna Gardens, but we really stuck gold with the bus driver. He was a real old charmer, with a wonderful chatty demeanor that made the bus ride a pleasure, but woe betide the girls who got on and forgot to say thank you to him for their tickets. He was off with a rant on there being no excuse for not being polite, which he then skillfully, without drawing breath, turned into a debate on equality, urging the bus riders to join in; a man whose soapbox I would happily join any day.
A quick film at the cinema (Hell Boy 2 - the film was OK, but what I really enjoyed was being able to sit down, on. a. chair; heaven), then home for a glass of wine and a bowl of perfectly ripe mango.
Total spent: $45 [£22.50)
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