Too Big a World. Too Many Lives to Live.

I felt like I've lived here some past life ago. 

It's just too vibrant, too frisky, too seductive.

If San Francisco were a man, I would've proposed to him right then and there. 

 View of SFO from the Coit Tower

 The Golden Gate Bridge

 Alcatraz

Ayie at a corner street in Mission District

The infamous Painted Ladies exhibiting Victorian and Edwardian architecture

(L) A street musician in one of the tunnels in Golden Gate Park, 
(R) A random warehouse

 Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park

Jen being Jen.

HOME.

Ayie and I stayed with her really good friends, Abby and Darwin. 

I still remember the taste and feeling of eating home-cooked meal over stories of their childhood, solid friendship, hard work in America, famous celebrities in the Philippines...

Abby and Darwin's Kate Spade-esque kitchen

Finally, amazing home-cooked meal after being saturated with so much fast food...

My bed and my natural state.

NAPA VALLEY.

We even got to visit Napa Valley. I knew the place was a good idea, thanks to Mr. Big and 'Sex and the City'.

 Napa Valley, Tristan Cellars

Ayie, Abby, and I doing some wine-tasting (fancyyy) at the Estate Cave, Trinitas Tasting Room 

(L) Abby and Ayie after a victorious wine-tasting session, 
(R) Chardonnay won.

Ayie and I at the vineyard of Tristan Cellars


Sifting through the Golden City's nooks and crannies...

Walking its streets like we knew where we were going...

 Mission District

(L) Tupac mural along Jack Kerouac Alley, 
(R) Ayie crossing the streets of Chinatown

The progression of our meals. We really tried fast food but still... RICE FOR LYF. 

 Jen striking a basic pose in one of Chinatown's murals

 Mission District muralist

(L) Woman doing Tai Chi at the Golden Gate Park with her pets, 
(R) Ayie acting as if we knew the way, but we really did get lost in the wilderness of Golden Gate Park. That place is massive!


SF MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (SFMoMA).

Before you visit museums with me, ask yourself if you're willing to stay there the whole day. Juggling time checking the artworks (in some cases, tears and internal dialogue included) and people-watching is serious business.

(L) SF MoMA staircase that very much passes as a space ship,
(R) One of the versions of 'Fountain' by Marcel Duchamp. If I'm not mistaken, this is the 2nd version (I mean, really I never thought I'd see this ever in person brb still crying).

 Tomas Saraceno's 'Stillness in Motion- Cloud Cities'

"Becoming airborne, being able to travel without sensing it or at least to sense it outside of our ways of perceiving space-time relations, is paradoxically remaining still and being in motion at the same time."

 Tomas Saraceno's 'Stillness in Motion- Cloud Cities'

 SF MoMA

 SF MoMA

 No. 14, 1960, by Mark Rothko

Kids enjoying themselves, as they should, at SF MoMA

HAIGHT-ASHBURY.

The permanent smell of pot and defiance filled the air as we strolled the psychedelic streets of Haight and Ashbury; the very nest and birthplace of America's counterculture in the late 60's and 70's.

 Haight-Ashbury

 Psychedelic streets

 People-watching at golden hour

 In one of the music stores in Haight Street

 A store that offers lots of weird things I don't need but I wanna buy...

 Scouring the stores 


BEAT.


To trace the same wayward alleys, drink in the same obscure bar as my college heroes did- Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsburg, and many other bastardly brilliant writers and intellectuals in the 50's, read in the very bookstore that was the mitochondrion of Beat literature and young, insurgent spirit...

Jack Kerouac Alley

City Lights Booksellers & Publishers, where Allen Ginsberg's controversial 'Howl' was published

Beat Literature. It's all here. This is where it started. 

Inside City Lights Bookstore 

 Inside City Lights Bookstore

 Just across City Lights is Vesuvio Cafe', where writers and intellectuals of the 40's-50's hung out

(L) Street Performer by the City Lights Bookstore,

(R) Inside Vesuvio Cafe'

Ben of the Beat Museum. He told me where to find Allen Ginsberg's first reading of 'Howl'


I had a day to myself. I decided to visit the place Allen Ginsberg first read 'Howl'. I paid homage and proceeded to tread SFO's roller coaster streets.

After a few friendly chat with people who let me pet their dogs, play with their kids, and hang out by the park, each of them became my map that lead me to my next route. 

(L) The crazy steep streets of SFO,
(R) View outside SF MoMA

 The spot where Allen Ginsberg first publicly read his poem, 'Howl', in Fillmore St. on Oct. 7, 1955

Alta Plaza Park

Yep, walking up and down those vertical streets is such a work out!

She told me she's a gardener looking after her grandchildren playing at the park

Alta Plaza Park Playground

A professional dog-walker who let me play with her clients' dogs :)

People-watching people watching

 View from the Coit Tower

Somehow I ended up in another neighborhood's garden path

Tirelessly, I wandered aimless until the sky turned pink. 

The Bay Bridge looked exceptionally majestic, crowned with the cotton candy sky, the rough diamond waters on its feet. Wistfully, I shared that moment with 2 other strangers facing sea. 

There's too big a world out there. Too many lives to live.