Day Two in San Francisco

I awoke to a darkenened morning--still raining.  Across the street the Starlite Room was advertising my brother-in-law's name: DAN, as the CING was not lighting up.  I lingered in the room, but decided that anyone could take pictures of San Francisco in the sun, with its picture postcard scenes.  But I would take the challenge of taking pictures in the rain--the tones all grayed down, the air damp and the struggle to keep the camera and the bag and the self dry while balancing an umbrella.

The crystals in the window of Swarovski crystals.

Self-portrait with umbrella, same window.

Our hotel: Chancellor, kitty-corner from Union Square.

I was walking down to meet Andy for lunch at the Ferry Building, and I still had a mile to go, so didn't go into the shop with zebra-patterned carpet and pink-sequined wall covering.

I took several photos of people walking by, close and near to where I was standing in a doorway. I liked this on the best.

Anthropology store window, of course.

How pleasant to encounter a little poetry on the way, on this rainy day!

Chevron got the naming rights for this piece of embedded hardware.

This was reconstructed by the Path Of Gold Festival Committee in April of 1916.  It was a unique little monument, about which I have no idea.  And in the rain, it looks much less like gold and much more like bronze.

This shop was celebrating Children's Day, which had happened a few days earlier.  It was a Japanese sweets shop.

And that morning on Google, they'd had an homage to the guy who was responsible for bringing origami to the masses, so I keyed in on these origami creatures.

Made it to the MarketBar in the Ferry Building where I was supposed to meet Andrew.  That gave me time to shed my raincoat, hang it over the empty chair, open up the umbrella was wet inside and out, and take some time to dry out before Rachelle (surprise!) and Andy arrived.  It was a lovely lunch, of which I felt it would be gauche to take photos.  But I wanted to because I had a homemade chicken pot pie brought to me in a small cast iron skillet, the pastry poofing high like a dome over the delicious stewy chicken-and-vegetable concoction.  I recommend it.  Be sure to get it on a rainy day.

 

A few treats from the Ferry Building, which focuses on food.  I focused on chocolate.

I BART-ed back up to the Shopping Centers, heading high up to the top floor to get the photo of the dome inside.  I did hit Macy's and found a pair of lovely earrings on sale half-off.  A reminder of San Francisco.

Cable car.  Must do tomorrow.

More photographs of these hearts. . . left in San Francisco. . . (couldn't resist).  I waited in the room for Dave, and we relaxed, then suddenly realized we should figure out dinner.  The first two places we called had waits over an hour.  The last place said, availability: now, so we took off and had dinner.  Turns out it was one of the places Dave-my-brother recommended when we were walking around on Tuesday, but the name escapes me now.

Store window: bristle people.

Art gallery: horse of found pieces.

Very cool raincoat.

Okay.

But we didn't.  We walked home in the rain.