Touring San Francisco

Raymond at the Fountain of Yoda, Industrial Light and Magic, Letterman Digital Arts Center, The Presidio, San Francisco, January 15, 2007

When friends and family visit, I bring them around San Francisco showing the sights. Each tour is different from the rest, I try to cater to what they want to see, or not see (some just want to talk, doesn't matter where I'll bring them).

For my folks, they find museums boring (as I found out in my first tour). They prefer shopping. Since I live near Union Square, it's easy to take them to the department stores and they are on their way. Dad will hit the sporting goods store for golf equipment. Recently when my sister arrived for a stopover, I drove her straight to the Gilroy Shopping Outlets.

My friend Chito is the off-the-beaten path type of tourist. Instead of bringing him to to the usual touristy places, we walked through Chinatown, through the markets, exploring dried goods stores and medicinal shops. Luckily, North Beach is right beside it, the culture immediately changes from Chinese to Italian, we sat outside a cafe near Washington Square watching a pickup volleyball game.

Due to the limited time available whenever he visits for a conference, I bring my friend Deng to the nearby nightspots, like Lefty O'Doul's Sports and Piano Bar and Naan and Curry (Indian).

For my friend Benjie, we had a driving tour. He's an urban planner, so you simply can't outgeek him with what you know about the city. He also checks out everything on Google Earth. But there's nothing better than taking him to the real thing, he noticed that the TransAmerica Pyramid is smaller than he thought. We drove through the Presidio and got a glimpse of the skyline of the city. The last place we visited was the new offices of Industrial Light and Magic at the Letterman Digital Arts Center.

I've heard of different San Francisco tours, like the city tour, the wine country tour, Victorian Homes tour, the Vampire tour, the gay Castro walking tour. If I were to create the Cross Postings SF tour, I would include:

1) The labyrinth at Grace Cathedral
2) The exclusive clubs such as the Bohemian Club and Pacific Union Club.
3) The Jose Rizal plaque at the Sheraton Palace.
4) The water tower (there are now 2) at Maclaren Park where they are said to hold wiccan rituals.
5) The fountain of Yoda at ILM.