On Saturday, we checked out a place called Picaro cafe (omg none of these places have their own website, i’m too used to Seattle) which served Spanish Tapas and Sangria. I didn’t know what Tapas were, but they are apparently little dishes of entrees ($6-$8 each) which everyone orders and shares. Just think of it like Dim Sum with larger dishes, we ended up having 10 tapas between the 5 of us. While we were eating, two hispanics came in with an accordian and (my guess is) a Spanish guitar and started playing random music. Eventually, someone called them over and paid them and so they played for the table; except I think it was the same song they played before! Aside from that, it was a nice little place and dinner ended up costing $20 each (hey right on average).

A short walk from Picaro Cafe was Castro, an “up and coming” gay district in San Francisco. They had a huge rainbow flag flying in the middle of the neighbourhood and even without that, you could obviously tell that it was a gay neighbourhood. So we spent some time there, took a walk in Tower records, tried to catch a glimpse of the Twin Peaks and the left for the car.

Back in the car, we headed off to Treasure Island. Treasure Island is an island in the middle of the Bay Bridge and the home of a Naval base. The real reason we were there that night was because there was an awesome view of the lights of San Francisco and the Bay Bridge. Unfortunate for me, I don’t have a good tripod yet otherwise I would have some awesome photos for you. Since the island was basically in the middle of the bay, it was hella windy; in fact I would say it felt like it was below zero with the windchill!

On Sunday, we had an interesting time trying to meet up with the other people who came with us around Fisherman’s Wharf. While we were there however, we saw an amazing display of spray paint artists who would draw these incredible scenes of San Francisco in like 10 minutes. They were also selling prints for $5 ($10 if you wanted to request one that they drew for you on the spot) which when coupled with their street performance seemed like a great deal; that is until you looked at it under light and discovered that it was actually a print. The performances themselves were amazing, they had upbeat dance music on the whole time, and would use fire (WD40 + lighter?) to dry off their paintings.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: bayarea, diary, travelling