A Week in San Francisco (Part I)

Spending just over a week in San Francisco last week, we checked out many of the sites in and out of the city! During our first couple of days there, we took our time wandering around a few neighbourhoods, and saw some of the sights in Golden Gate Park.

California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park

Elizabeth arrived in San Francisco a few days before Luke to participate in a Grad Induction as part of her job. The Grad Induction was a great opportunity to meet fellow new graduates from all over the Americas, and work on some design projects. However, once the few long days packed with activities were over, Luke arrived and it was nice to get a chance to explore the city together.

Upon Luke's arrival, we quickly settled into our AirBNB apartment. It didn't take us long to realize that the apartment was located in one of the sketchier areas of town, the Tenderloin. San Francisco real estate and rentals are very expensive so we wanted to find some reasonably priced accommodations not too far from the downtown area. The apartment itself was good, but the area isn't somewhere you'd like to hang around for long.

In the afternoon we went to Dolores Park, in The Mission, and met up with some of the people from Elizabeth's Grad Induction. The view from the park was great, and we came across a few interesting characters walking around.

Dolores Park

After spending some time in the park, we went out for dinner and ate some delicious carnitas (basically pulled pork tacos) before heading off for drinks at the Southern Pacific Brewery. We were both tired; Luke was jet-lagged and Elizabeth was exhausted from being out late 3 nights in a row, but we persevered!

Needless to say, on Sunday we got off to a late start. We caught a cab to Golden Gate Park and started off our tourism at the California Academy of Sciences. We wanted to fit in a couple of attractions in the afternoon, so we didn't have a whole lot of time. We started off by wandering through the rainforest dome in the centre of the building, which houses rainforest wildlife and reminded us of a mini Montreal Biodome.

Our next stop was the earthquake exhibit and simulator. It was the first time on our trip that we came across information about the 1906 earthquake that devastated San Francisco. Over 80% of the city was destroyed due to the resulting fires that lasted for several days afterwards. On top of that, about 3000 people died. The only other significant earthquake in San Francisco's recent history was a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in 1989. The reason behind these powerful earthquakes is due to the fact that the Bay Area is not only along the San Andreas Fault, but 6 other fault zones exist in the Bay Area! As many people told us during our time in San Francisco, it's not a matter of if the next big earthquake will happen, it's a matter of when.

After taking the opportunity to test out the earthquake simulator, we finished up at the Academy of Sciences by visiting an interesting exhibit on skulls. 

A wall of skulls in the Skulls Exhibit

We finished off our day at the De Young Museum, an art gallery across from the Academy of Sciences. We thoroughly enjoyed the exhibits and had to be forcibly removed when it closed. Almost.

Before making our way back to the apartment, we hung out by a fountain in Golden Gate Park, and walked through the Haight and Ashbury neighbourhood on our way back. Haight and Ashbury was the centre of the hippie subculture in San Francisco the 1960s and still retains some of that vibe.

To see the rest of our posts about our trip:
A Week in San Francisco (Part I)
Napa Valley Monday
A Week in San Francisco (Part II)
Yosemite Wednesday
A Week in San Francisco (Part III)
Muir Woods Friday
A Week in San Francisco (Part IV)

Here are a few more pictures from our first day and a half: