Update

Ok - here's a breakdown of what I've actually been doing over here:

Wed 13/6
Stayed at home reading Harry Potter
Helped Emily clean her car & did laundry
Went to El Cerrito Parkway cinema because of their Wednesday 2-for-1 offer. So we saw "Lives of Others" for just $3 each - so cheap, I love it. This place is not a normal cinema - you can order food and eat it in there because they've got tables and sofas etc. But it's not fancy like gold class or anything, it's just a cosy little place. It's pretty cool. It has got to be the first time that I've ever snacked on broccoli in the cinemas before. Emily ordered the combo pita and veggie hummus plate. It was pretty good - I've never felt healthier after coming out of a movie.

Tues 12/6
I met Emily after work at her rock climbing gym where she climbs regularly with her friend, Justin. They've got a basketball hoop in the parking lot, so while she climbed I played. Jason, another one of Emily's friends, came and played with me for a bit. It felt good to play after so many months. Justin, Emily and I then went out for dinner at this gourmet burger placed called Barney's. It was really good - man they do make a tasty burger over here. yum... And also really good curly fries with ranch sauce (they serve that with almost everything over here). Here's Emily with the smallest curly fry:

Jason then came over after dinner and I can't believe it, but we actually watched probably more than two hours of ultimate cage fighting, much to Emily's disapproval :)

Mon 11/6
Emily got us and her friend Dan, free tickets to a San Francisco Giants baseball game courtesy of her company, which were really good quality seats ($70 tickets) totally near the pitch and everything.


Might have to zoom on that pic, but you can see how close we were. It was so cool! We saw Barry Bonds hit a home run and he's only 9 home runs away from holding the title of most home runs ever! We were pretty lucky because apparently he hasn't hit a home run in the last 13 games, so it was cool that we got to actually see the drought breaking hit. He's a San Francisco Giant by the way, so he had heaps of support from the crowd. Anyway, was gonna get a hot dog, but since could only afford one thing, Emily insisted that I try a local speciality - garlic fries:

whoa man, those fries had a lot of garlic!! It was like someone slipped and put a whole jar of minced garlic over the whole thing. Hmm..think I prefer just plain old chips and gravy, but still was quite an experience. Anyway I'm sure you'll all be glad to hear that the San Francisco team won, beating Toronto Blue Jays 4-3. It's not as slow a game as I thought it would be, but really in the end, it is still a pretty low scoring game.

Sun 10/6 - Giang's SF Tour
Emily's friend who lives in the same apartment building, Giang, was nice enough to drive us around today to SF. First up we went to the exploratorium, which is the San Francisco Science Museum. Man, I love science museums. We assembled RNAs, constructed a double helix, watched a cow eye dissection, tested if we were tone deaf (of which Emily and I are not, but unfortunately Giang is, or so she says), made giant bubbles and I tried really hard to burp into the echo chamber, but sadly with no success ;) Here's Emily and I with these hearing devices that try to reverse the direction of hearing or something:




Giang and Emily with their deer ears for enhanced hearing.

Would you do it? I couldn't bring myself to - it just seemed wrong. It said that the toilet had never been used and the water was drinkable, but still, I just couldn't.

Anyway, we got so hungry after spending 3 hours in the museum, so our attention waned slightly, so after feeling quite satisfied that we had explored all the exhibits as thoroughly as we could, we left to go have some clam chowder down at Fishermens' Wharf. It's pretty cool because the clam chowder is scooped into a huge bread bowl:

Yum...this is what I came to SF for. After finally getting some food in our bellies, we continued walking down the wharf, which is so absolutely touristy.

Here's Emily and I looking "naval" down on the dock - ha..ha...get it? yeah yeah...i'll move on

We then went to Ghiradelli, which is this famous chocolate store/restaurant. There seems to be a constant line to get inside. Crazy. But we went anyway and got some sundaes:

They were pretty good - brownie sundae and a berry sundae. So sweet, but perfect to finish off lunch with.
Giang then drove us around showing us where everything was in SF - she used to live there and so knew quite a bit about the city. She was even able to take us to see these:

Recognise them? They're called the "painted ladies" (I think) and they're the famous SF houses shown in "Full House". Remember? They look so nice - so many of the houses in the city there look really really nice. These houses are on heaps of the postcards and tourist memorabilia, so was glad I could see them for free all thanks to Giang's tour :)

She then drove us down to Ocean Beach

It was FREEZING! Totally windy, but cool to actually see the other side of the Pacific ocean.

Sat 9/6
Emily and I drove out to meet up with Sean for breakfast out in Davis, which is where Sean studies and lives and is about an hour's drive from Berkeley. Jason also came out too since he lives around there as well. We went to this nearby restaurant, can't remember the name, but turned out to be pretty good. We had massive omelettes and another perk of the place was that the tables were covered in butcher's paper and there are crayons at the table, so we kept ourselves amused by drawing on the table. It was cool to see Sean again after like 6 years or so. Here's a pic:


After breakfast we went to Sean's place where he shares a 4-bedroom place with 5 guys or maybe it was a 3-bedroom place, can't remember. anyway, it's too small for them all so Sean said he's probably going to be moving soon. Here's the lovely centrepiece table of his lounge room:

And the worryingly large bottle of bug wash:

I think Sean said it was radiator fluid, but still the fact that they had the huge bottle in the first place is still concerning.


Anyone for leftovers?

Anyway, after leaving Sean to continue studying for his finals, Jason led us to the Jelly Belly factory which was nearby.

That whole portrait is made entirely from jelly bellies - pretty cool hey? Emily and I got the factory tour, which was cool, but could have been better if it wasn't the weekend and the factory had been in full operation. But anyway, was still cool to have gone.

Fri 8/6
Emily caught the flu that I had had, so had to call in sick. So we just hung around the apartment for most of the day. Later on though, Emily went rock climbing with Justin and I tagged along to go and see her gym. It's pretty impressive - Chris I bet you'd love it. I just sat in the lounge area they have and read Harry Potter while Emily and Justin climbed.

Thurs 7/6
I went into SF for the first time. I caught the BART in (that's the name of their metro system) and met up with Emily at her work. Here she is looking patriotic/business-y:

It was one of the biggest flags I'd ever seen. Was flying in the opposite square to her building - well I guess it is the Bank of America building, so they've got to show who they represent. Anyway, we met up with another one of Emily's friends, Manny (sorry if I spelt that wrong), and went to Chinatown to have Malaysian food. Apparently Malaysian food is not all that common and are usually restaurants serving Malaysian and Thai together, so not quite authentic, but was still pretty good. Emily then had to go back to work, so I continued to walk around and headed downtown. After she finished work, Emily came and met me and we went and saw "Waitress" which turned out to be surprisingly quite entertaining. Then because on Thurs betwen 6-9 its halfprice, we went to the SF museum of modern art (MOMA). It was pretty interesting but unfortunately the top two floors out of the five were closed off, so we didn't get the whole experience, but hey what do you expect for a half-price ticket.

Wed 6/6
hmm...can't remember..might add more later if i can think - but i'm sure it was nothing that significant.

Tues 5/6
Can't quite remember except that we saw "Pirates 3" with some of Emily's friends. I thought it was pretty good - long, but in a good way.

Mon 4/6
see wed 6/6 entry

Sun 3/6
This is the day I arrived - I'm sure I've broken that down for you all in emails, so I won't elaborate.