Pictures from a recent afternoon stroll through Chinatown, the neighborhood next to mine in San Francisco.

Enjoy!

The Chinatown gate at Bush and Grant Streets with some crazy guy darting out into traffic screaming at cars as he crosses the red light.  What would an excursion in San Francisco be without it being kicked off by coming across some spazz case whack job crazy dude freaking out at the world around him?!  They're everywhere here!  ;-}

Me at the Chinatown gate.  Interestingly, the first shops in Chinatown are a couple of chandelier shops run (presumably?) by Persians.

And what would a good Chinatown be if not including a restaurant from Persia's neighbor the Israelis/Jews?!

Ah. . . finally Chinatown begins!  Lots of shops with fun little tourist trinkets as far as the eye can see. 

And of course I was excited to find not one BUT TWO plates with my name/s!  Alas, I did not buy either.

Excellent little monkey sculptures on a bench on Grant Street in Chinatown.  Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil.

Above and below: two more great little sculptures on Grant Street.

Me walking down Grant Street and taking a picture of myself in the reflection of a Chinese souvenir shop.

Walking along Grant Street - the main street through Chinatown.

St. Mary's Cathedral on California and Grant Streets - right next to the Financial District.

Statue for Dr. Sun Yat Sen in St. Mary's Square.  (See below)

San Francisco does what it can to reduce its thrashing of the tiny little ball of rock and water that we find ourselves on.

In fact, San Francisco is consistently ranked as one of America's cleanest and environmentally friendliest cities!

The view of the Financial District from St. Mary's Square right next to Chinatown - one block down from Grant Street.  I stitched three pictures together manually to make this picture, with the Bank of America high-rise to the right.  Interestingly, I ran this picture through an auto-stitching image program and the picture came out all twisted and garbled.  So much for the superiority of computers!  (And if I had spent more time on it, I would have edited out the lines you see where the pictures overlap.  Some day!)

NO WAIT!!!  I just ran the picture through my little stitching program again and this time the image came out MUCH better.  Hmm. . . these tricky computer processors are getting better and better all the time, even in your own computer when you're not looking!  It's still not perfect though!  ;-}

 

St. Mary's Cathedral on California and Grant Street.  My office is just down the street!

The Transamerica Pyramid as seen from Chinatown.  (The tallest building in San Francisco, until 2012 when a taller building is expected to be completed in the city as part of the Transbay Terminal redevelopment project.)

Great little designs on the second floor of a building in Chinatown.

And you better pay attention too, because the San Francisco meter maids will getcha!

There's a lot of No Stopping Any Time in Chinatown!

The old and the new. . . with old being defined as 1906 or after since this neighborhood was burned to the ground after the 1906 earthquake along with much of the rest of downtown San Francisco.

Bank of America in Chinatown.  Interestingly, the characters in Chinese for America translate to "beautiful country".  So in Chinese you say Bank of America as Beautiful Country Silver Exchange.

The Chinese Baptist Church, originally built in 1886, burned down in 1906 and rebuilt in 1908.

Mural on the wall of the Chinese Baptist Church.

I love this picture.  These women seem to really like each other's company.  I love friendship!  (Family?!)

Above and below: Waverly Street, recently renovated

I love all the colors of Chinatown!

Waverly Street

More Waverly Street

Scores of little red lanterns hanging above Grant Street at Clay.

The fun little pagoda shaped United Commercial Bank

The Blade Runner looking Hilton Hotel next to Chinatown and the Transamerica Pyramid.

Interesting little guy standing guard at a very Asian looking concrete apartment block in Chinatown.

If it were up to me, this apartment building would have a date with a wrecking ball!

To the contrary, great design elements in Chinatown

Portsmouth Park right across the street from the Hilton Hotel, which also happens to house the Chinese Cultural Center where I took Mandarin Chinese lessons for a whole six weeks two years ago.  ;-}  Once I realize I was basically tone deaf I gave up since Chinese is a tonal language!  I'll stick with atonal languages, thank you very much!

The Empress of China restaurant which, despite its very concrete Asian looking exterior, is alleged to be VERY swanky and upscale on the inside.  The view is from the bridge that connects the Hilton Hotel to the park over Kearny Street (pronounced kernee... and not keer-nee!  That's how you can tell someone is from out of town!).

The clean, 21st Century version of Blade Runner.

Portsmouth Park in Chinatown.  Scroll to the right --->>>

I love how things are translated differently in Chinese, which is often similar to Japanese.  The bank's name in English is First Bank but in Chinese/Japanese the sign reads Gold Mountain Silver Exchange. . . with Gold Mountain (the first two characters) being the way that Chinese refer to San Francisco.  Cool, eh!

Is that our good buddy Mr. Osama bin Laden on the Chinatown stops sign?!?  That guy just shows up everywhere!  GO AWAY ALREADY!!!

Ah. . . the California Street cable car at California and Grant Streets.  DING DING!

The visual busy'ness of Chinatown on Grant Street.

More busy'ness

The good ol' YMCA in Chinatown

Great colors and architecture/design elements

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that you're in San Francisco!  Especially since most San Franciscans don't hang clothes out their windows!

I wonder if that's formally prohibited in the rest of the city?!

More Chinese language madness than you can shake a stick at!

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POWEL STREET - one block away from Grant Street

And they ain't jokin' neither!

(Note the Bay Bridge in the background)

Me in one of the quieter areas of Chinatown bordering Nob Hill and Russian Hill (split on each side of this street (Broadway) one block up respectively, although if you lived in these apartments the ones on the left would probably say that neither of them were in Chinatown. . . and I bet that both would actually say they were in Russian Hill since Russian Hill is a bit swankier officially than Nob Hill).  In 2006 I used to live just on the left side of Broadway Street further up the hill officially in Nob Hill but I always told people I lived in Russian Hill.  Haha. . .

A high rise building in Russian Hill from the 1960s that would most likely never get approval for construction if submitted today.  Virtually all new higher rise apartment construction is taking place in the South of Market (SOMA) District south of the Financial District, and the rest of the city is solidly anti-development.  I suppose not everywhere in the world needs to look like Hong Kong, eh?

St. Mary's Chinese School.

I love the inclined streets of San Francisco!

I wonder if you have to speak Chinese to go to this school?!?

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STOCKTON STREET - The REAL Chinatown for REAL Chinese people. . . not the tourists!

The busy intersection of Pacific and Stockton Streets in Chinatown which could be in China for all you could tell.

Even Walgreens goes Chinese in Chinatown.  In fact, I think you basically have to be Chinese to work there!

Me loving myself in Chinatown.  ;-}  (I'm still sporting my beard these days!)

Yummy food!!!  Hmm. . . are those roaches in the pan on the left?!

Fresh fish, right on the side of the street!

Yummy treats. . . and an environmentally "friendly" curly compact fluorescent light bulb.  (Never mind the trace amounts of mercury hanging over the food!)

Real Chinese people doing their day to day shopping.

It must suck being an animal that pleases the human palette.

Large wall mural on Stockton Street

Holding my camera above my head and snapping pictures.  I wonder if anyone was thinking, "Have you never seen Chinese people shopping before?!?"

The great thing about Chinatown is that they sell stuff that you'd never see in a regular American supermarket.  Asia just seems to have so many more fruits and vegetables than anywhere else in the world!  I wish I knew how to prepare even 5% of it all!

More yummy eats hanging in the shop windows

Listening to Kylie Minogue's new album X

A bus stop in Chinatown on Stockton Street which is the main street you have to go down on public transit from North Beach to get to Market Street (the main street/subway/street car transport line in San Francisco) which mega-sucks because traffic is incredibly SLOW!!!  Stockton Street in Chinatown is a total bottleneck in the MUNI transit system and I'll often just walk from North Beach to Market Street which takes about 25 minutes, which in fact can be faster than waiting and taking the bus.  The buses in Chinatown are almost always guaranteed to be JAM PACKED with locals pushing and crushing their way into the busses.  Thanks, but NO THANKS!!! 

If at all possible, I walk.

Interestingly, ever since the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake knocked down the Embarcadero Freeway that terminated right into Chinatown, apparently the Chinatown political powers that be have been trying to get a transportation hub back into the neighborhood.  Since the Freeway Revolts of the late 1950s and 1960s the city and its residents have been absolutely opposed to any new freeway construction in the city (which is why there are none that cross the city - you have to take surface streets), but Chinatown has been lobbying hard recently for the construction of a $1 Billion+ subway system from the Moscone Center in SOMA (South of Market) into Chinatown along Stockton Street.  This has caused a huge scandal among the rest of the city since the length of this billion dollar joke would be approximately 4000 ft.  Moreover, the subway would not intersect with the Market Street MUNI/BART subway and would instead have a deep subterranean station at Union Square which is just about 2000ft from the center of Chinatown, which can be walked in 10 to 15 minutes!  Basically, Chinatown is trying to get the rest of San Francisco to cough up a billion dollars to build a subway to get convention goers back and forth between the Moscone Center and Chinatown.

Um. . . I DON'T THINK SO!!!

As it is the MUNI system constantly runs deficits, has a terrible on-time track record, constantly asks for (and gets!) more money from the city's voters and, not surprisingly, few in San Francisco are convinced that tossing another billion dollars at an already dysfunctional transportation system is going to be in anyone's interests, except perhaps MUNI and Chinatown.  Resistance to the Chinatown MUNI line goes down when people are shown plans of the system intersecting with Market Street MUNI and then being extended out of Chinatown and down Columbus Street toward Pier 39 and the tourist Waterfront, but that plan would cost billions and billions and who's going to pay?!

San Francisco ain't Dubai. . .

. . . petro dollars don't grow on trees here. . .

Come to think of it, maybe a new subway wouldn't be such a bad idea!!!

Sneaky slow children at play darting around in the oft-overlooked alleyways of Chinatown.  Keep your eyes open or you'll miss 'em!

Written on the side of the building, if I'm not mistaken: The Asian Continental Women Services Center.

I think the Chinese/Japanese writing systems are truly fascinating.

Stone Street apparently being painted. . .

I love this picture, in a perverted way.  A homeless black/African-American man sitting curbside on a cushion next to a Mercedes-Benz and his likely-stolen shopping cart mobile home.  Whatever this man may have - or may not have done - to get to this point in his life, the whole scene is still an injustice.

We as allegedly civilized people can do better than this.

Yet what did I do to remedy this injustice?  I took his picture from behind and walked on.

We're all guilty. . . especially me!

The color scheme of this street reminded me of the desert hues of the Arabian/Persian Gulf country of Oman.

The Middle East with a Chinese flair

The mural at closer inspection

Erstwhile. . . back on Stockton Street, more unrecognizable Chinese eats. 

I can't read the first character in Chinese, but if my Japanese still serves me, then it says something-flower-snow-ear. 

?!?

Please correct me if I'm wrong!  If I weren't up in the Sierra right now, I'd consult my Chinese character/Japanese kanji dictionary. . .

Chinatown and the Financial District side by side

Chinese/Japanese really does look like it's from outer space sometimes!

Cool, albeit difficult though, that they have the most complicated writing system on Earth.

If life exists elsewhere in the galaxy, I wonder if they can top Chinese and Japanese!

Murals in Chinatown while the locals wait for the bus to whisk them away toward Union Square, Market Street and beyond.

Me taking a picture of a guy taking a picture of his girlfriend.  I wonder if he spotted me out the corner of  his eye?!

WIRE MANIA OVER STOCKTON STREET!!!

Note how the wires and cables all disappear in the distance where, not-coincidentally, my beloved North Beach/Little Italy begins.

On California Street atop the Stockton Street Tunnel which connects Chinatown with Downtown San Francisco and Union Square.

The view down California Street down into the Financial District from atop the Stockton Street Tunnel

San Francisco is so interesting in how fast the neighborhoods change.  On one block you have Chinatown, on the next block you walk atop a tunnel and you're in a luxurious block of the Nob Hill District with European flair all around.

The Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco atop the Stockton Street Tunnel.  Scroll right --->>>

Looking down Pine Street from atop the Stockton Street Tunnel.

Descending into the tunnel from Bush Street atop Stockton Street.

The Tunnel Top bar is a bit of a local institution.

Abandoned clothes and shoes in the Stockton Street Tunnel staircase. . .

. . . makes me wonder what the surveillance camera above recorded.

The Stockton Street Tunnel, one of the many ways into Chinatown.

One of the most common methods of conveyance for me in San Francisco through Chinatown: The Dirty 30

The intersection of Stockton, Green and Columbus Streets where Chinatown ends on the right and North Beach/Little Italy begins on the right.

The flags of China and Taiwan are replaced with those of Italy and California.

Topless double-decker buses rolling down Columbus Street - the dividing line between Chinatown and North Beach/Little Italy.

On my walk back home. . . Sts. Peter and Paul Church in North Beach.

A Caddy pointed toward the waterfront at the intersection of Stockton and Greenwich Streets in North Beach.

Invasion of the Euro-car!  The SMART Car built by Daimler AG and recently imported into the US.  While small cars like this make tasty bumper candy for giant gas guzzling American SUVs, the car seems to be taking off in the city.  With gasoline approaching $5 a gallon in California and parking at an absolute premium in San Francisco, cars like this make A LOT of sense.  Now, if only they'd make a zero-pollution plug-in electric/hybrid hydrogen fuel cell model that got the equivalent of 200MPG+!!!

Hopefully our upcoming US President and Congress will have the spine to legislate this technology into reality!

Bye-bye Bush!  Don't let the oil door hit you in the @ss on your way out of town!

Originator of the Arab Oil crises of the 1970s and forerunner of the SUV of the 1990s and 2000s. 

Evil to the core, yet charming in its own special way.  ;-}

San Francisco bids you farewell!

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