Alameda day trip

Alameda is a cute little island just across the bay from San Francisco.  Locally, it’s called “the island” and it has a fun, laid back feel and incredible views of SF.  Even though it’s small, there’s a lot of amazing buildings, especially Victorians.  I recently went out there for a little escape from the city.

The Alameda Theater, built in 1931

We wandered down Sherman Street, which has a few houses built by Julia Morgan.  I was surprised by how lovely the entire street was.

I thought this garage was cuteSome nice Victorians.  I love Queen Anne style Victorians! 

1025 Sherman Street, built by Julia Morgan

At the end of the street, we stumbled upon a canal

All of these houses were within just three blocks!  Sorry about all of the shadows in the pictures.  Alameda has a ton of trees, which is great for the residents but hard for people taking pictures!  Alameda was really fun to visit and I can’t wait to go back again.  Next time, I want to try the local winery tasting room.

My trip to Iran part 2

As promised, here’s the second half of my favorite photos from my trip to Iran last fall.  Click on any of the photos to enlarge them for more detail.

This is the town of Abyaneh, where the buildings are all made of red mud brick.  It was gorgeous.  The town is a former Zoroastrian village, and they have their own dialect and their own style of dress.  You can see a very common outfit on the lady below.  It’s sort of a flowered head scarf over another flowered top with a skirt.  It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site.

This is the tomb of Cyrus the Great, who died in 529 BC.  The tomb is in Pasagardae and the entire site is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  Alexander the Great (who the Persians call Alexander the Cursed) visited here after looting Persepolis.

This is a room from a pavilion in the Bagh-e Dolat Abad (Dolat Abad Garden) in Yazd, a town in the desert.  I loved the reflection of the stained glass in the water.  The garden itself is large, but not too picturesque, and is part of the Persian Gardens UNESCO site.

Then we moved on to Esfahan, which is a beautiful city.

Chehel Sotun Palace, built in the 1600s.  It’s also part of the Persian Gardens UNESCO site.  The inside is decorated in paintings of battles and other events, and decorative designs.

Chehel Sotun Palace was lovely, but Esfahan’s main attraction is without a doubt the Maidan-e Imam – the Imam Square.  It’s the second largest square in the world after Tiananmen.  Believe me, it took a very long time to walk all the way around it!   On the square are two mosques, one of which is huge, as well as a palace.  The larger mosque is in the background of the picture below.  Encircling the entire square is a bazaar, filled with everything from camel bone boxes to copper vases to spices to every day things like shoes.  It was really interesting to walk through it all.

Sheik Lotfollah Mosque, on the square.  It was reserved for the royal harem and built in the 1600s.

The domed ceiling inside was unbelievable.

Finally, we visited the old Friday Mosque, which was built in the 1000s!  It is an enormous site, added to over centuries.  And of course, it’s a UNESCO site.  Each section has a very different look, and they are all lovely in their own way.  Below is one of my favorite pictures from there, because I love the calligraphy in the stonework.  Click on the photo to see more detail.

I hope you enjoyed seeing these photos!

My trip to Iran part 1

Back in October, I had the opportunity to go on a tour to Iran for nearly 3 weeks.  It was an amazing, eye opening, wonderful, yet challenging trip.  I visited much of western Iran, from Tehran from up into the northwest corner, all the way down through the Fertile Crescent, back up through the desert around the middle of the country and back to Tehran.  It was a whirlwind, but I learned so much about the country, which Americans don’t often get the opportunity to do.

It was a little scary entering the country, because they held us for an hour at passport control without any word on what was going on while they copied all of our passports with the world’s slowest scanner or photocopier.  Then it was a long drive into Tehran, which has the craziest traffic I’ve ever seen in my life. From there, we took a lot of long bus rides and saw many UNESCO World Heritage sites and other amazing things.  All the while, we were warmly welcomed by Iranians.  Here’s some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

Takht-e Soleyman (Solomon’s Throne) – this huge UNESCO site was way out in the middle of nowhere and is a volcanic crater lake with different buildings from settlements over centuries, from the first millennia BC through the 13th century AD, surrounding it.  I couldn’t even capture the entire lake in one shot.

A zoroastrian fire temple at Takht-e Soleyman.  That low square toward the big wall near the background is where the fire was kept.

Vakil Mosque, Shiraz.  Many of the mosques we visited were covered in gorgeous tiles.

Citadel, Shiraz.  The “Leaning Tower of Shiraz”.

The Pink Mosque (Nasir al-Mulk), Shiraz.  It gets its name from the light that comes in through stained glass windows.

The Eram Garden, Shiraz.  This is part of the Persian Gardens UNESCO site.

Friday Mosque, Yazd.  We saw a lot of mosques.  This was one of my favorites. 

The Tomb of Daniel, Susa.  Men and women have to enter on different sides of the shrine, and I was told that only the men have access to the tomb.

Chogha Zanbil, near Susa, another UNESCO site.  This is an ancient Elamite ziggurat, built about 1200 BC.  It was 104 degrees the day we visited this, and I almost didn’t make it all the way around the ziggurat.  But it was worth it. And the Shushtar Historical Hydraulic System, Susa, also a UNESCO site.  This system was built by Roman prisoners of war under the direction of Shapur I and is still in use today as a water mill.  There are more waterfalls not shown in this picture, and the roar of the water is astounding!

I hope you enjoyed looking at these!  I’ll be posting the second part of the photos soon.

Hello WordPress

Welcome!  I’m excited that I’ve finally managed to import my sadly neglected old Typepad blog that I started several years ago to WordPress.  I have two other WP blogs now and it just makes sense to have them all in one place.

On this blog, I’ll be sharing photos and such of San Francisco and the Bay Area and my travels, quotes, and whatever else inspires me.

I attended Nightlife at the California Academy of Sciences for the very first time the other week.  It was a bit hectic, but interesting, and I surprisingly ran into a few people I knew.  My favorite part of the museum has always been the Steinhart Aquarium.  So, of course I had to spend some time down there, wandering around amongst the seahorses and jellyfish.  I used to dream of being a marine biologist (and now I’m studying to be a librarian!) and still love visiting aquariums.

These were taken with a camera phone, so please forgive the quality of the third pic! 

I hope you come back to visit again or follow this blog!  Coming soon – pictures of my epic trip to Iran!

Bouquets to Art

Well, I’m really behind on this post, but that’s okay.  In March, I went to see the annual Bouquets to Art exhibit at San Francisco’s De Young Museum.  For this exhibit, floral designers create bouquets inspired by art works in the museum.  It was my first time at this event, although I admit that I have purposely always avoided it.  The exhibit lasts for only one week and is wildly popular and busloads (literally) of people come from all over to see it.  As you might imagine, it was crowded to the point you could barely walk around.

The bouquets were quite lovely, but it was hard to take pictures and I eventually gave up.  Although I’m glad I went and everything I saw was pretty, the crowds were uncomfortable and blocked the views of a lot of the bouquets, and I probably won’t be going back in the near future!

Here’s some photos that I did manage to capture while navigating the crowds.  Where possible, I tried to also capture the artwork that inspired the floral arrangement.

This was an enormous sort of chandelier arrangement in the entry hall.

You can see the art in the background that this arrangement is based on – an illustration of the Bay Bridge.

A detailed view.

Two more arrangements inspired by the Bay Bridge exhibit.

This was for the black and white modern art you can see a glimpse of.

This was one of my favorite arrangements.  I loved the purple lilies.

A bit more detailed view of the above arrangement.

This one was hard to get a good picture of, so sorry, but it was one of my favorites of the whole exhibit.  It is slices of wood joined together, with air plants interspersed throughout.  It was really large – maybe six feet high?

Here’s another great one, inspired by the Japanese screen you can see in the background.  I love the orchids and plants on the top.

This one was inspired by the painting on the right, which has always been one of my favorites from the permanent collection. The painting is Winter’s Festival by Willard Leroy Metcalf, 1913.

And I believe this was inspired by the dancer in the painting on the right.  The painting is called Outdoor Stage, France by Everett Shinn, circa 1905.  Also one of my favorites.

There were many amazing and impressive floral arrangements and it was worth going to see, but a bit too hectic to try to see each year!

San Francisco SPCA tour

I recently had the chance to get a behind the scenes tour at the San Francisco SPCA through a friend who works there.  I was able to learn about their amazing programs, like therapy dogs, the spay and neuter clinic to help reduce the number of kitties and doggies in shelters, and their vet hospital, which offers free and discounted care to people who need help getting medical treatments for their pets.

This is the animal care center.  All of the little red dots are heart-shaped pet tags!

I saw the adoption center and went into the hospital where some dogs were getting dental treatments. I also got to walk around the back halls of the animal care center, where cats and dogs are helped and treated while getting ready to be placed in the adoption center. 

And best of all, I got to hold a little kitten!

Soooo cute!  I wanted to take home all the animals I saw!  But, my friend said he didn't want to have to check me for kittens before leaving, so I cooperated.  I know they're all going to go to good homes.

I didn't get to see a lot of dogs because many were out on walks, or were barking so much the rooms were just too loud to go into.

I met this guy in my friend's office.  I would love to have an office with a built-in kitty (or dog)!  I don't know how I'd get any work done, though…

Great tour, great organization.  I got my own cat from here 14 long years ago.  It was interesting to see the behind the scenes and learn more about what they do. 

Point Reyes

I've neglected this poor little blog lately.  I've been trying to figure out what I want to do with this space.  Grad school has also been busy, but I'm so happy because the other day I realized I only have six more classes to go, so I can be done by summer or fall 2015 sessions, depending on which classes I can get into to fulfill the requirements.  So excited! 

Despite the craziness and exhaustion, I'm still trying to make time to get away on little trips.  Last weekend, I went to the Point Reyes National Seashore for a short hike, hoping to see the elk that live on a reserve in the park.  

We had a little picnic, then headed off.

It's a beautiful trail that winds around for views of the ocean. 

There were wildflowers blooming everywhere!  Poppies, buttercups, wild irises, and more.

It was so nice to stroll through the flowers while seeing views like this.  (PS These shots aren't blurry, there was fog….).

We did see some elk, in the valley pictured above.  There were about a dozen of them and they were too far to get a picture of.  But, we had binoculars so we were still able to spot them and see them grazing and walking.  It was great.

A panoramic shot I took.

At the trailhead is the old Pierce Point Ranch, built in 1858 and now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Next, we headed over to nearby Point Reyes Station, a tiny town of only about 800 people.  The main street is only a few blocks long, but is quite nice.   

This building is from 1898.  I can't believe a town this small can support a bookstore.  That's awesome.

I thought the tiny post office was cute. 

Getting to Point Reyes is really easy from San Francisco, and the entire park is enormous.  I hope to go back soon to see the Point Reyes Lighthouse and hike some of the other trails.  But there's also so many other places I'd like to visit!  Next up is a day trip to Santa Cruz in a couple of weeks.

Magnolias in bloom

This weekend, I visited the San Francisco Botanical Garden to see the gorgeous magnolias in bloom. 

Magnolia loebneri, a hybrid of magnolia stellata (further below) and a Japanese magnolia.

I love the sort of stripes on the Magnolia soulangeana petals.  Like a natural ombre!  The common name is saucer magnolia.  It's also a hybrid. 

 Sprenger's magnolia, a native of China.  This was spectactular. 

The petals are huge!

Magnolia stellata, the star magnolia, native to Japan. 

 Zen magnolia, native to China.  These smell amazing!

Magnolia dawsonia, from Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in China.

Magnolia denudata, the Yulan magnolia, the official flower of Shanghai. 

Lovely!!

Martinez

Like Benicia, I had been to Martinez many years ago to visit a friend, but never saw the downtown.  Martinez was a lot sleepier than Benicia.  It was a Sunday, and many of the stores were closed and there were a lot less people walking around.  Martinez claims to be the birthplace of the martini.  It's right across the Cariquinez Strait from Benicia and the downtown has a lot of preserved buildings.  John Muir lived here from around 1880 until his death in 1914.

The old Southern Pacific Railroad depot, built in 1876

And an old steam locomotive across the street from the train station

I thought the public library was pretty, although it was hard to get a good picture of it

This was a pretty building in the downtown area

The Contra Costa County Hall of Records was built in 1931 and is a pretty example of classic moderne style

The buildings downtown were well-preserved and many had plaques showing the history of the building.  But, I just wasn't inspired to take a lot of pictures there for some reason.  It was cute, but lacked the charm of Benicia.  Still, it was nice to walk around it and check it out.  I'd like to go back and see the John Muir National Historic Site, which there wasn't time to do this time around.

 

Benicia trip

Over the weekend, I headed over to Benicia to explore its historic downtown.  I haven't been to Benicia since high school, and even then just went to someone's house and didn't see much else.  Benicia is about 45 minutes from San Francisco and actually served as the state capitol for one year (1853-1854).  The downtown was quite cute and had a great promenade to walk along the Carnquinez Strait. 

 First, we visited the visitor center, in an old train station from 1900.

We picked up a handy little historic walking tour guide, which featured  the highlights along the main street.  Interestingly enough, just about everything was on the left side of the street.  Maybe the train tracks used to be along the right side?

We grabbed lunch at Sailor Jack's.  The building is from 1870 and was first built by an English sea captain and then was later used as a bordello. 

 This picture gives a better view of the pretty doorway

The Davis-Merritt house is from about 1869 and was prefabricated in Maine and shipped out to Benicia.  Can you spot the doggie in the window?

This salt box style house is from about 1848 and is right on the edge of the Carquinez Strait.  It was also premade on the East Coast and shipped over, which was apparently common during the Gold Rush. 

The Union Hotel (1880) has beautiful stained glass windows. There are stories that the hotel is haunted.

The City Hotel was built in 1870 and was a rooming house

It's funny that a bath cost more than the room…

The Solano Hotel was a Pony Express stop

Next up was the Fischer-Hanlon house, built in 1850. It's next door to the capitol building and part of the state capitol park.  I have to say, this building has seen better times.  The paint was seriously peeling and overall didn't look in great condition.  The porch was added sometime later, along with a kitchen and servant's quarters.  I think it would look better with the porch removed.  And a paint job. 

On the other hand, I loved that it had the original carriage steps and horse hitching post

This Masonic temple was the first one built in California, in 1850.  There is a newer temple next door to this one, but it had signs all over it saying it was not retrofitted and to stay away from it during earthquakes!

Finally, we went into the State Capitol Building.  California surprisingly had five state capitols in five years!  Benicia was the fourth, in between nearby Vallejo and Sacramento. 

The great seal of California

The Senate floor (there was also an assembly floor upstairs)

Each desk had a spitton.  They were everywhere throughout the building.

There was a lot that we missed because it was more out of the way, so I'd like to go back and see more.   I'd also like to go back and explore more because my great-great-grandmother's brother inexplicably ended in Benicia from Charlestown, NH, somewhere around 1865.   I want to figure out where he lived and go see his house. 

After Benicia, we went over to Martinez, which I'll post pics of soon.  This day trip was my last hurrah before having surgery yesterday.  Now I'm luckily past that and recuperating at home and looking forward to the next day trip.