Exploring San Francisco From The Bay

There were a couple of things on the agenda for today, both of which are included with the San Francisco City Pass. The first is a cruise on San Francisco Bay and the second is a visit to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Finally, this evening attending another Couch Surfing event.

San Francisco Bay Cruise

One of the included activities on the San Francisco City Pass was a cruise on San Francisco Bay. The cruise was with Blue & Gold Fleet Bay Cruise Adventure and is a one hour cruise. The bay here is rather large and only so much that you can see in it, but just a few highlights.

Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is possibly the main highlight of the tour. Especially getting to see it from a little bit different angle. The biggest challenge in seeing and photographing the bridge this morning was something you cannot see in this photo. There was a rather strong westerly wind, that was extremely cold. I do kind of wish I had taken something like gloves or a scarf, but I made it through.

Alcatraz Island

Even though I got to visit Alcatraz Island yesterday the view of the island today is a little different. As we are approaching from the west, while the approach was from the east yesterday.

Skyline View

There is also a great view of the skyline from the bay as well. It is a little further back than the skyline view I shared yesterday, again a better perspective I think.

Forbes Island

The last thing was a little spot called Forbes Island a restaurant located between Pier 39 and Pier 41 in San Francisco. The island is a floating island and started life as a home, but after some remodelling was opened as a restaurant in 1999.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

I must start out with saying that an art gallery is not one of my primary attractions to visit. However, it was included with the San Francisco City Pass, so I figured it would be worth taking a look. There are no photos of the interior, as it was just to much guess work as to which exhibits you were able to take photographs.

Whether it is the right way to approach viewing a gallery or not, I went in with some expectations as to what I would find. Surprisingly I found that my expectations were quite accurate in the end.

My expectation was to find someone’s interpretation of what art is to them. Which is exactly what I found. I might have preferred to see what I believe is art. But at the same time, not all art is enjoyed by everyone, so to some degree, there need to be variations.

So while I took some time and looked around, I think I would prefer visiting a traditional art gallery. Somewhere with sculptures and paintings that depict something that you can identify what the artist is sharing. Rather than something that is ambiguous. There were some exhibits that I did very much enjoy, but they seemed to be the exception.

CouchSurfing Meetup #2

With my first ever Couch Surfing event last night, I figured why not follow that up with another tonight. In San Francisco, the Couch Surfers have a thing called Thai Food Thursday (TFT). Although I am only here for the one time, I understand that it is something that moves between two different Thai restaurants on a weekly basis.

I was happy to find that it is reasonably close to my hotel and an easy walk. Plus it was good to know a couple of people that were going, but also I got to meet plenty of new people as well. Things went a little bit later tonight, as I continued with a couple of people to another bar after the meet up finished. I find that it is a good experience to get to meet some local people while travelling.

Tomorrow

I am looking forward to a couple of things that I have planned from the City Pass for tomorrow. I hope to be able to fit everything in but will have to see how that goes after the late night today.