On the Street

Pretty realistic art. I think it's an advertisement for a cabaret thingy. There are some more, but these are all I got while the van was moving on.

The city is hill-y so they built their buildings like this. I thought the uncle could be a vertical reference, but maybe not. Anyway, the pavement should be the one that's slanted. I was also slanted while I was on the ground there, so it turned out like this.

I thought this McD was cute. Heeh.
As you may be able to tell, the banner was about the movie Pirates of the Caribbean which was showing.

Nothing special with this poster visually, but this iPod girl saved us from being lost around Chinatown when we couldn't find where we'd parked the car. ^^0

*Ahem* Besides the interesting poster *ahem* see also the graffiti on the left. They have a lot of this around the city, and most were not as nice.

This rainbow flag, the symbol of the Gay Liberation movement, marked the entrance to The Castro, "the center of San Francisco's gay and lesbian community, but is welcoming to all residents and visitors" (from the city guidebook). The streets in the area are lined with similar rainbow banners.

The emergency staircases, I think? Most buildings have these. This is not the most beautiful of them all, but this is what I've got. =P

I meant to capture the impressively thick, white fog. The sunrays were a pleasant surprise. The black lower half was the car door.

Flora

An umbrella of trees! How do they bend so nicely at the ends?

Pineapple tree -- physically, not genetically.

Just thought the leaves looked nice.

And thought these flowers were unique, too. This was in Pier 39.

Still in Pier 39, must thank Kathy for spotting this and telling me. =) Black flower!

And a black tree. Erm, dark red actually, as you can tell. But while I looked from the shadows it looked black enough. This one was in the Yerba Buena Gardens.

Misc

First food I had in SF. Of course must take picture of it along with the receipt. =D Afterwards we were too embarrassed to be taking pictures of food in restaurants. =P

This was a noodle soup from a Thai eating place called Cha-Am Express, just around the corner from the conference venue. Because of my experience with Singapore's Thai Express I asked first if it was spicy. =D It wasn't. Even the chicken curry that I had in my second visit was not so spicy. Good for me. ^_^