Serena Epstein » Travel

San Francisco 2010, Day 5

Serena — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:57:19 +0000

Our last day was spent revisiting places we didn’t spend enough time in earlier. We made a quick tour of Japantown, where I ate a crèpe.¹ Went into every Japanese grocery store within a 4-block radius, passing up fresh octopus for delicious but hard-to-open fruit drops.² Also picked up a pair of handy collapsible chopsticks. Headed back to the Lumiere to watch the animated shorts, followed by a very satisfying dinner at one of the city’s best Thai restaurants.³ After that, we repacked our things and went to catch a bus to the airport. Instead, the bus breezed right past us despite shouting and waving. We were grouchy the whole taxi ride to the airport.

Yes, I know it’s wrong to eat crèpes in Japantown. But there were TWO crèperies there! What was I supposed to do, ignore them both?
It took me a good 10 minutes to pry open the tin with a nickel I had in my pocket. It turns out there is a beer-flavored version of the same candies. Who knew?
Surprisingly, it was right near our scary neighborhood.

San Francisco 2010, Day 4

Serena — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:13:04 +0000

Most of day four was spent on a couch at our hostel, getting some design work done. I escaped just in time to see clouds covering up the sun and realize that the Asian Art Museum was free the previous Sunday instead of Tuesday. Whoops. We trudged back to the hostel¹ and discovered that the Oscar-nominated shorts² were playing just a short walk away at the Lumiere Theatre.³ After watching the live-action shorts, we took the bus to Ghirardelli Square, bought a large back of assorted chocolate squares to split, and then finished the day at our favorite Indian restaurant.⁴

Past a grouchy-looking prostitute and a gas station billboard with a J.D. Salinger quotation.
Watch all of them online here!
I was pleasantly surprised by this movie theater. It was small and a little shabby, but had exactly the kind of patrons I love to watch movies with. And is right across from a great thrift store.
It’s half Indian restaurant, half Irish pub, and the combination is exactly as weird as you’d expect it to be.

San Francisco 2010, Day 3

Serena — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:17:34 +0000

On day three we followed a painted truck into Japantown, visited every thrift store in Haight-Ashbury, ate surprising pasta, and made it back downtown in time to see something very San Francisco: a protest.¹

MUNI was increasing the price for monthly passes, which is already ridiculously high. We got this information from a very helpful woman sitting barefoot on the sidewalk and rattling things. Can we talk for a minute about things I hate? The MUNI logo is pretty awful. I mean, who thought that would be a good idea? Clearly someone was all like, “Oh, I know. We’ll make it all CURVY like Lombard Street but in the shape of the word MUNI. I’m so clever!” Bad choices. They should have stayed with the old logo, which was classic and charming.

San Francisco 2010, Day 2

Serena — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:08:51 +0000

Took the tram to The Castro, explored, ate our traditional lunch at Orphan Andy’s, climbed the hill in Buena Vista Park, endured very windy weather, and watched a bizarre hilltop ceremony.¹

They climbed the hill in silly costumes, with pantyhose over their heads, and began to play strange instruments. Pretty sure one of them was banging on a drum with an oversized kitchen whisk.

San Francisco 2010, Day 1

Serena — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:48:46 +0000

We started off the day with bagels at our hostel on the edge of the Tenderloin.¹ Wandered into Chinatown for the New Year street festival, then ended up at Ghirardelli for ice cream and free chocolate. Watched the sunset over the bay and played in the sand.

It was an alarming neighborhood. Shouting and banging in the streets at night, ambulances every few minutes, prostitutes on the corners, and a friendly “GO TO HELL” sign in the window opposite ours. I don’t remember any gunshots, but I’m a pretty heavy sleeper.

Hay-on-Wye, book lover’s paradise

Serena — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:18:21 +0000

Imagine a town with bookshops on every corner. And in between every corner. And, well, everywhere. Guess what? That town exists, and it’s in Wales! Hay-on-Wye, often called “the town of books”,¹ is the kind of place I want to go when I die. Everywhere you turn, books! New, used, antique, fiction, nonfiction, prints, maps… everything you could ever want! There are around 30 separate bookshops in Hay-on-Wye, so start planning your trip now.

I was so distracted by all the bookshops that I didn’t remember to take a single photo in Hay-on-Wye. At the end of our day, we took the wrong road out of town and ended up on a beautiful hill overlooking the valley. In keeping with the previous day’s Sinister Cows™, we found a whole herd of friendly horses grazing on the slopes.

The first of its kind!

Herefordshire, now with extra cows!

Serena — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:24:09 +0000

Spent a few nights in Herefordshire, visiting my great-aunt and uncle. If you have never thought of “sinister” as a description of cows, you have not met my new bovine friends. One by one, they wandered up until there were about twenty cows standing a few inches away, just looking at me. I think we all know what the next big creature flick should be.¹

Extra credit: check out this list of “Top 291 Horror Movies Starring Cows“

Cornwall, Day 6

Serena — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:17:28 +0000

I spent my final day in Cornwall in one of my favorite towns: Zennor. Home to the famous mermaid chair,¹ Zennor is a cute little village near St Ives that boasts dramatic cliffs, ocean views, a beautiful old church, and (of course) a great pub. Usually, we hike the four miles to Zennor from St Ives via the coastal footpath, which is gorgeous. There are always raspberries and blackberries to pick along the way, and once I even encountered a couple of curious seals after wandering out on some seaside rocks. This time, though, we drove to Zennor² and arrived (alas!) too late for our usual shepherd’s pie and lemonade at The Tinner’s Arms. Instead, I explored the church and graveyard, then hiked along the coastal path far enough to find a good spot to read my book.

Did you know: the church in Zennor is named for Senara, a Celtic saint who was condemned to be burnt by her cruel stepmother. After discovering that she was pregnant, her persecutors instead nailed her into a barrel and tossed it in the ocean. She gave birth while at sea, and an angel kept her fed and healthy until the barrel washed up on the coast of Ireland. She and her son left Ireland eventually, returning to England and founding the parish of Zennor in Cornwall. Many believe that the mermaid chair is more closely connected with Saint Senara’s aquatic origins than with the (probably more recent) mermaid legend.

Legend has it that–hundreds of years ago–the singing of a young man in Zennor was so exquisite that it attracted a mermaid, who began to attend church services to hear him sing. They fell in love, and he followed her back to the ocean, where they both disappeared forever. The ‘mermaid chair’ is a carved bench dating back more than 600 years. The carving is of a mermaid, holding her comb and mirror.
I was feeling a bit under the weather during my week in Cornwall.

Cornwall, Day 5

Serena — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:30:19 +0000

To be honest, nothing much happened on day five. It rained all day, and we were supposed to take in an evening performance of La Traviata at the Minack Theatre,¹ but that rained out. So I’m cheating a bit and including some leftover day four photographs. At the end of the day (after Kynance Cove) we stopped by Roskilly’s Farm to see if they had food/ice cream for us. But as it was a weekday, they had closed already. So instead we took a little walk, gushing over adorable baby ducks and marveling at giant rhubarb plants.²

One day, I will grow a garden full of giant rhubarb. Then I’ll grow giant strawberries and make a pie the size of a swimming pool. It will take all summer to finish eating this pie, even with the neighbors helping.

Open-air theatre hewn out of a seaside cliff!
We also saw an overgrown road sign that was several yards into the woods, instead of on the road. It was probably still pointing in the right direction.

Cornwall, Day 4

Serena — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:01:31 +0000

We spent the sunniest day of the week outdoors, on the Lizard. Mid-morning, the high tide was crashing into Mullion Cove, where I climbed a hill and made friends with a pretty bug. After that, we hit up the Lizard Pasty Shop for “Ann’s famous Cornish pasties” and ate them overlooking the ocean.¹ We arrived at Kynance Cove just in time for low tide. I did pretty much the same things I did last time I was there, the only difference being that I’m not four years old anymore. (I had to be careful not to damage my camera while exploring the many caves and climbing cliffs barefoot. Life is easier when you’re four.) All of the cliffs at Kynance are made of beautiful green and red serpentine (lizardite). I geeked out a little over this, and got strange looks from my fellow beach-goers as I leaned close to the rock walls to examine green serpentine veins. It amazed me that people were running around and climbing on these rocks without even noticing how gorgeous they were.

Fun fact: basking sharks are very common in Cornwall, and fishermen/divers/tourists often encounter them as they rise to the surface to inhale plankton and small fish. The sharks, not the tourists.² They’re pretty silly looking,³ and are normally six to eight meters long.

They almost lived up to the hype. The crust was delicious and flaky (the best I’ve had in a pasty), but the filling could have done with a bit more steak and a bit less swede (rutabaga).
What I wouldn’t give to see a tourist inhale plankton.
Well, that could be the tourists…