A full day out planned for today at the California Academy of Science Museum in Golden Gate Park today. Is not cheap to go in here at $35 each so I was hoping it was going to be worth the money. It was fairly packed when we got inside and they were having a fake snow storm in the lobby, it doesn't snow very often in San Francisco, much to the delight of all the kids that were in there. The first thing we went to was the tropical rain forest; you have to queue up to get in because everyone has to go through an airlock so none of the animals or bugs escape. When you start off at the bottom you’re at swamp level and you can see the fish swimming around below you, then you start to follow a spiral path around the edge that takes you up through the various parts of the forest to see what type of creatures live in each part. You eventually climb up four floors past the parrots to you get to the top of the tree canopy, that's where you find the biggest butterflies I've ever seen, they must have a wingspan of over six or seven inches at least. It's really good to look down from about 70 foot up through the trees and see the birds, butterflies
and other bugs flying about. From the top you have to get into a lift that takes you down to below the forest floor where you go out through a room full of mirrors to make sure you don't have any hitchhiker's on you from inside, and then it's out through another airlock. Now you are in the aquarium underneath the forest floor where you can walk through a glass tunnel and look up at the fish above you and the rainforest you were just in. From here it takes you through to the main part of the aquarium where you are confronted by the biggest glass wall I have ever seen, it has to 25 foot high, 40 foot long and contains all marine fish. It is an incredible sight to stand here and watch them swimming, it's like being underwater, now I know why people go diving. After that it was time to get some food from the cafe in there, I wish we hadn't bothered now, you couldn't get in the main café without a very long wait so we opted for the fast service grab and go, unfortunately the service wasn't fast and when we did get served there was nowhere to sit to eat it at first. We only had a hot dog each which you would think would be hard to screw up but they did, it tasted alright but I think it had spent to many days in the steamer and the prices were scandalous at $7 for the hot dog plus $6 for a bottle of drink times 2, but it's not like you can go anywhere else to something to eat. We had a look at some other parts in there then Jane wanted to sit down for a bit so I walked over to the earthquake simulator, this was really good, after you are shown a short film you move through to the next room that is set up like some somebody's living room then it re-enacts the earthquake from 1986, that shakes the hell out of you but that's not the end of it, another short story takes you back to 1906 when the big one struck, this one shakes the room that are stood in even harder and longer, they do admit that this is not as bad as the actual 1906 quake was because they can't shake the room hard enough. On the exit from here you enter a gallery of photographs taken in 1906 and 1986, when you see the damage that was done in both of them it's amazing more people were not killed. By now it was almost time for our slot in the planetarium, even though you don't have pay to go in you still have to get a free ticket as there are only so many seats inside, it then re-enacts the 1906 one from a view above the ground and the fire that broke out afterwards that burnt down 500 city blocks (about 20 square miles in that era) and killed more people than the original earthquake, over 3000 people died in the fire that raged for the best part of a week and couldn't be put out as most of the water mains had ruptured. In the end to it was only stopped spreading further when they started to blow up parts of the city in lines to create a fire break to stop it from destroying the entire city. As most of the city was in ruins now this explains why there are not many buildings more than 100 years old here but some did survive like the Market building on the Embarcadero although it was badly damaged, in the intervening years most of the old buildings that were left standing have been retrofitted to withstand another earthquake of even bigger magnitude by basically putting the foundations on springs to withstand the shaking. As the presenter said, we are due for another big one soon but there's nothing you can do about it but prepare for the worst to happen and hope you live through it. On the plus side most of the earthquakes originate on land so there not as much chance of a tidal wave but there are air raid style warnings that go off a few seconds before they have one, we heard them at least twice during our stay but they was only testing them, it then announced afterwards that "this is only a test" after you have crapped yourself.
By now it was about 4.30pm and we had seen everything in here so we headed out for the walk across the park and back into the Sunset District to a restaurant I had all planned out, Jane was starting flag now so the first place we came across I'd seen few days before called the Little Shamrock Irish bar, as we were both gasping for something to drink we dived in. The Shamrock is just like the pubs back home but more friendly, although they didn't do food it was good just to have sit down with a beer that I desperately needed, the one thing that always surprises me is that even though there is only one person serving you still get served in a couple of minutes, there were a few people in there so I got a pint of IPA bitter, locally brewed, and Jane had a coke, at first I thought she had charged me wrong but no it was only $5 for two drinks. I just wish I'd have discovered this place earlier in our stay here as it would have been worth the 30 minutes on the tram just to get here for the cheap beer, good service, and a very relaxing atmosphere, mind you it was happy hours but the price didn't go up by much even after that had finished.
By now it was around 5.30pm and we are both getting hungry so it was time to make a move to the restaurant I had planned on going to, big mistake that was. I've always been wary of places that don't put up their menu outside and ones that don't put the prices on them, when we had a look through the window and seen that they have perfectly folded napkins tucked into the wine glasses, we realized this wasn't the place for us, far too upmarket for me. It was time now to consult the offline part of the app on my phone from trip advisor to find somewhere to eat that didn't involve any walking, as luck would have it there was another place just around the corner from us that I had missed called Milano Italian restaurant, this is what I'd had hoped to have planned, an authentic Italian meal of meatballs and pasta. This was a fantastic place to eat at, it was a bit quirky to get your drinks severed in jam jars but apparently that's the way they do it back home, there weren't too many people in here apart from the birthday bash that was going on in the back room so the food comes out in about 20 minutes and it was worth the wait, I'm not sure what type of pepper they brought out in the pinch bowl but it was amazing just like the rest of the meal, unfortunately Jane couldn't taste it as she was still suffering from her cough and lost her sense of taste now so I had to tell her what it tasted like. By now it had gone dark so after paying the bill of only $30 it was time to catch the tram back; you couldn't really get a shorter walk to the stop as it was virtually outside the door of the restaurant and only had 3 minutes to wait.
We arrived back at the hotel about seven thirty then ended up just watching some TV for a bit but I wasn't finished off for the day just yet so walked it up to Union Square area to take yet more photographs and have a couple of drinks in a bar that I can't remember what was called then got on a bus down to the Embarcadero to photograph the buildings at night and Bay Bridge, it's incredible to see all the edges of the building's lit up in the dark and the lights on the Bay Bridge look like running water, they seem to cascade down in different colours, like water. On the whole, when I look back this was another great day out for us both although it may have been too long.
