Category Archives: Weather

Day 595 OUT OF Beijing: Cable Cars, Alcatraz and Clam Chowder.

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A cable car getting ready to leave on its journey.

A cable car getting ready to leave on its journey.

 

As Jill and I hopped off the bus, we knew we had a number of places to visit today and needed to be time sensitive since we had so much to do and research for SF Tourism Tips.

The first place we needed to visit was the Aquatic Park area and get a few pictures, and videos, of the cable cars there.

It would be a long day of walking all along the Embarcadero and this would be a perfect first stop.

The Buena Vista Cafe, which is world famous for its Irish Coffee was right across the street but we decided we’d wait a bit and take our time before imbibing as we planned to hit a few of the new breweries later in the day.

The cable cars were running, on their usual 10 minute schedule, and we were able to get all the pictures we needed.

We enjoyed just hanging out, watching the fog roll away, and seeing the signs of pure joy on the peoples’ faces as they began their journey on the Cable Cars through the San Francisco hills.

 

Waiting for the journey to begin.

Waiting for the journey to begin.

 

After getting what we needed, we headed down to the waterfront, to grab some breakfast. We had left the house around 6:45 am and it was already about 10 am and we were starting to get a bit hungry.

One our way, we spied Alcatraz prison, off in the distance and shrouded in fog.

As people say, “It is a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

It always amazes me how close Alcatraz is to the shore and yet how desolate it feels when you are there.

It is definitely worth a trip, if you haven’t gone, and worth visiting again if you have!

 

Alcatraz peaks out of the fog.

Alcatraz peaks out of the fog.

 

We walked down Jefferson Street and listened to the barkers as they called out different attractions people could enjoy, like renting bikes or little go-carts, to travel around, and finally got to the area where all the fisherman sell their clam chowder in sourdough bread baskets.

We both love these delicious treats and missed them greatly while we were away.  The clam chowder was delicious and the bread was nice and toasted.  All in all, a perfect way to start our getaway in San Francisco.  It also only cost $7.07 for a meal that filled us both up and warm us up at the same time.

Doing research can be wonderful if you love your job as much as Jill!

 

Delicious Clam Chowder served in a sourdough bread bowl!

Delicious Clam Chowder served in a sourdough bread bowl!

Day 594 OUT OF Beijing: You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone!

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After coming through the Marin Headlands Tunnels approaching the Golden Gate Bridge.

After coming through the Marin Headlands Tunnels approaching the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

Jill and I ventured into San Francisco today to do more research for SF Tourism Tips.

We love taking the bus in, relaxing while we ride, and just watching the traffic as we pass by it.

Once in a while we get stuck in the traffic, since even the carpool lane is full, but most of the time we have a pretty fast ride and we enjoy sitting in the front seat so we can talk to the bus driver a bit and see the best views.

Most of the other riders are usually reading on their tablets or phones or working away but we prefer to be present in the ride and the enjoyment of being back in Northern California.

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.

We do know what we have because it was gone and now we are back.

At least until February 28th when we head off to Los Angeles.

We’ve already set up plans to see lots of friends and relatives down there and can’t wait to hit Cancun so Jill can see her sister and her sister’s family and I can finally meet some of Jill’s family in person instead of on Skype.  Being that we met 8 days before I left for China, I’ve never met her family, in person, and she’s never met mine.  This will be a fun trip around the USA!

The Bus driver, this morning, seemed a bit grumpy, which was oddly out of place since he looked a lot like Santa Claus with a huge white beard and big belly.

We thought he’d be friendly and happy, since basically every driver we’ve met on the Golden Gate Transit system is incredibly happy and friendly, but he wasn’t.

Since I started out using a silly phrase, might as well use another one: I guess you can’t judge a book by it’s cover also.

We made sure not to ask any questions and just took some pictures and said “Hi” to passengers as they got on and off the bus and most of them replied with the same.

We weren’t in any hurry to get in since we knew exactly what we wanted to do, what times the places we wanted to visit were open and when we wanted to be home.

It is a wonderful way to live a carefree life and even though it seems as if it is all easy, it isn’t.

Jill puts in many hours of work, especially over the last 4 years, to make her site well respected and easy to use for tourists and locals alike.

She receives a lot of compliments, on her page and on her Facebook page, about how well it is put together and how “real and down home” it is.  That is something Jill specifically worked at instead of just being the generic, “This is what you want to see and do” kind of site that so many other people have built.  It took many hours of walking, busing, and hiking around San Francisco and it still continues to each day.

The fact that she continued to build the site, and her business, while living in China for 1.5 years just goes to show that incredible research, photographs and knowledge that she had stored up in her mind and her computer.

Now that we are back, we will be updating a lot of stuff and building even more pages because we are so excited to help people see more about San Francisco and see it through our eyes so that they can then see it through their own.

 

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. Karl the Fog in the distance.

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. Karl the Fog in the distance.

 

Day 590 OUT OF Beijing: Healey. Austin Healey.

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I love the reflection of the tree from the incredible paint job.

I love the reflection of the tree from the incredible paint job.

 

To paraphrase James Bond, “Healey.  Austin Healey.”

Jill and I aren’t huge fans of using cars.

We both sort of agree that they are used for getting around, doing what you need, and not much more than that.

People seem to become branded by their car and their car style to some extent and we have become branded to the fact that we are car-less.

The more we drive on bus, take planes and ride trains, the more we realize how easy it is to get around in the USA without a car.  We also don’t work in an office or have hard time lines for a lot of things we want to do so it does make it easier for us.

We also realize we have chosen to be kid-less also so that makes it much easier.

However, my brother David and his wife Meta, were also car-less while having two young kids, for a quite a while and he survived in Portland by just using bikes and cycling wherever they needed to go.

We aren’t trying to change the world, or anyone else’s way of living, we are just enjoying the way we live and the freedom it affords us.

That being said, Jill and I still love seeing super cute cars and we were walking around San Francisco yesterday, researching information for her site, SF Tourism Tips, and saw this beautiful Austin Healey.

My mom and dad, long before I was born, used to have an old Triumph TR-3.  I believe it was black and they sold it since they knew they’d be having kids and a tiny two seater wouldn’t really have been a viable means to transport.  I seem to remember that the person that bought it crashed it soon after it was delivered and it was wrecked.  The balance of joy and the impermanence of objects.

This tiny 1960 Austin Healey Sprite Mark 1 was parked in the SOMA district, near Southern Pacific Brewery and the Lyft headquarters, and the owner was obviously still making repairs and fixing it up but it was gorgeous none-the-less.

The owner had a few other cool looking motorcycles in his garage but we didn’t want to intrude or bother him.

We just took a few pictures, admired the beauty of this car, and smiled as we walked away.

We truly love being back in the Bay Area and being able to walk around the amazing city of San Francisco.

 

Day 589 OUT OF Beijing: Upwardly Vagabonding.

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A longer shot of the bridge with the new movable divider on the left.

A longer shot of the bridge with the new movable divider on the left.

 

As most of you know, Jill and I are traveling around and only staying with friends or family.

I’ve titled this new way of finding a place for us as “upwardly vagabonding.”

A vagabond is someone that is essentially homeless and is just trying to find a place to live and survive.

We are more Upwardly mobile about our vagabonding so I’ve joking called it just that.

We are staying in nice places, with good people, and don’t have to worry about shelter or really being homeless.

As Jill continues to build her site, SF Tourism Tips, and we are now building our new website together (to be released to the world in a month or so) we want to stay as frugal and with as little limitations on us as possible.

We also are traveling by plane, train or bus wherever we go unless friends are driving and we can hitch a ride.  We also use uber or taxis if needed to get around.  It saves us money and saves us mental strain as we don’t have to worry about driving and possibly being in a car crash, paying insurance or worrying if we are going to get lost.  We leave the work to the driver or pilot.   We also then have time to enjoy the scenery or work on projects while we travel.  Win-win.

We have gone through another round of minimizing our stuff and donated all our winter clothes and whatever we think we won’t need.

Our plan is to be down to one good sized backpack and one daypack each by the time we head off for Los Angeles on February 28th.

It is rather amazing we’ve been home for a month already because it seems like we just arrived and are still settling in.

Part of that is the reverse culture shock after being in China for 1.5 years but it is also that we have stayed in 4 different places in one month so we didn’t really “settle” down in any one place and feel at home.

We will be staying at our friends, Randy and Alethea’s house, for most of the the rest of our trip in the bay area so that will make life more comfortable and easy on us.  Hopefully it will on them also as they are being incredibly generous letting us stay and hang out with them.  Randy is like a second brother to me so it is wonderful to spend time with him and his family and just be “home.”

Here are a few pictures from the Golden Gate Bus as I was upwardly vagabonding home to Randy and Alethea’s recently.

 

Day 588 OUT OF Beijing: Xinhua has Decided that Bacon is the Cause of China’s Pollution!

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Hazardous to all living creatures.

Hazardous to all living creatures.  From the app “Airpocalypse.”

 

Jill and I still have our WeChat accounts and are in contact with our friends back in Beijing.

One of them, Moeava, posted a wonderful article about the pollution in Beijing a day or two ago on WeChat Moments.  I’ve posted the article at the end of this blog.  For those that don’t know, WeChat Moments is sort of like Facebook’s Wall.  However, you can only see what your friends have posted and you can’t see other people’s posts or responses, if they aren’t your friends.   We wouldn’t want too much free speech or chance of an actual conversations between people, now would we?  This might lead to something called a more free society.

Perish the thought!

A side point: They’ve made it a felony, punishable with up to 3 years in jail, to have something you’ve posted re-posted 500 times or more.  This means, if something you post gets enough attention, you can go to jail.  Thankfully, I didn’t have enough readers or reposters of my blog or who knows what might have happened.

As you will see, the Xinhua News Agency, otherwise known as the mouthpiece for the government, stated that people smoking bacon is the actual cause of pollution in China.  Xinhua is famous for putting out false claims and absurd facts.  If anyone should be in jail for lying in a public forum, it is the people that own Xinhua and China Daily.

So, just imagine that smoking causes the insane amount of pollution in China.  Maybe it is just me but almost everyone in the rational world would have guessed it is because of too many cars, too much coal burning power plants, or because they keep using dynamite to blow apart mountain tops.  Why, you ask, do they blow apart these mountains?  So they can have more flat land to build apartment complexes that no one will ever live in.  Not that building massive apartments, all over China, might cause pollution from all the equipment used or the cement made to build the apartments?  Nah.  Nope.  Xinhua News Agency has declared it is because of people smoking bacon.

Another aside: China has over 64 million empty apartments, condos and houses right now.

SIXTY FOUR MILLION EMPTY APARTMENTS, CONDOS AND HOUSES!

If you think the housing market collapse of 2008 was bad, just wait about 3-5 years from now. and see what happens.  I’m not a Negative Nelly but I have a feeling there will be a housing collapse like no one has ever seen.

There is also massive real estate speculation overseas by Chinese investors.  Take a gander around San Francisco and look at the houses that are being bought, in cash, and you will see what I’m talking about.  One of our friends says a house, on her block in SF, just went for 3.2 million dollars a few months ago to a Chinese buyer.  This house is probably about 2,000 square feet and in a nice district but not worth 3.2 million dollars.

The house has sat dead empty with no renters or inhabitants since the investors bought it.

Of course, the tech money that is moving into SF is part of this but it isn’t enough to fuel it to the degree that it is raising prices.  This is also happening in NYC, Boston and Vancouver, Canada.

Back in China, the extreme wealthy, and the developers are building apartment complexes and no one is renting them out.  The owners and developers seem to believe that somehow, miraculously, the apartment prices will continue to rise and then people will rent them out when they are more expensive.

Being that 70 million apartments are empty and no one is even interested in renting them, I can’t imagine these immediately being full in a few years.

I also worry about the quality of these places.  Apartments that are just a few years old tend to look like they are 20 years old already.  I’ve been in some of the more expensive apartments (including ones that cost more than $9,000 USD a month) and they already look like they need repairs.  They have problems with hot and cold running water, drainage, and fixtures breaking.  I’m glad I didn’t live in a high rise as I’d be worried about them if an earthquake hits in Beijing.  And earthquakes do hit in Beijing.

There are also malls that sit empty, like the New South China Mall and whole cities that are dead quiet, other than a few thousand people, because there is no need for them.

However, the economic needs of the Chinese government push people to move into cities, to buy things they don’t need, and to spend money they don’t have.

Again, it sounds a lot like what happened in 2008 and I’m thinking that history is going to repeat.  I honestly don’t care who buys what, but I’d like to know that whomever is buying actually has sound currency that won’t evaporate the second it is questioned.  Heck, during our goodbye party, one of our friends couldn’t pay for his drinks because the ATM gave him counterfeit bills.  This was directly out of a Bank of China ATM.  And there is nothing he can do about it.

I hope I’m wrong but I’ve seen too many signs that point to this occurring and relatively soon.  Just be careful with your investments and what you are planning.  We could be in for some tough times ahead.

 

Smoking bacon is the cause of pollution in China.

Smoking bacon is the cause of pollution in China.

 

Day 585 OUT OF Beijing: Frugality, Fitness and Minimization.

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Two pair of shoes for $54.99.

Ready to run.

 

Jill and I love to go running.

Sadly, because of the pollution in Beijing, we were not able to run nearly as much as we wanted to each day.

It became a struggle to be motivated since we’d have 3 or 4 days of decent weather and air quality and then a week of deathly pollution.

We ended up giving up and knew we’d get back into it once we arrived back in the USA.

We are now getting ready to get in shape and start our working out.

Part of this endeavor has also been to minimize as much as possible.   We are close to being down to one suitcase each, and maybe a day pack, for our travels.

Therefore, when we buy something, we need to get rid of something else.

This includes running shoes.

I’ve had the same pair of running shoes for about 2 years now and they are in horrible shape.

We walked over to the Petaluma Outlet Mall and went to the Adidas store.  They are having a buy one get half off the second sale and so we took stock of what we have, and what we can get rid of, to see if it was worth having two pairs of tennis shoes.

I knew I’d dump my old tennis shoes when I bought these so there is one piece gone.  I also won’t really need my dress shoes after a month or so because we won’t have much business that requires us to dress up by the time we leave for Los Angeles to stay with my friends Christopher and Tina.

I also got rid of one backpack, full of clothes, 2 days ago that was full of winter clothes I’d no longer need.  I also donated my winter jacket to a friend who will give it to one of his social work clients.  We could probably sell some of these things but it is just easier to give them away and help the needy at the same time.

Therefore, my pack has gotten much lighter and I could afford to have two pairs of shoes.  The sale also allowed me to buy one pair for 39.99 and the second for about 15 dollars.  Adidas is also having a 5 dollars off promotion when you donate your old pair of shoes.

The sum total for 2 pairs of brand new shoes for me?  $54.99.

Jill and I ran home, me wearing one pair of my new shoes, and carrying one of the pair in one arm, while Jill wore her shoes she bought 3 weeks ago and carried the other shoe to my pair in her arm, about 2 miles.

A good work out, a good lightening of our load, and a good start to be more fit and frugal at the same time.

By the way, I’m off for a 2 mile run right now.  The weather is perfect, the air quality is fantastic, and I just had a nice healthy breakfast of yogurt and fresh strawberries.

It is so nice to be home.

Day 583 OUT OF Beijing: The Beauty of Ocean Beach: Video.

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A view from Ocean Beach towards the Farallon Islands.

A view from Ocean Beach towards the Farallon Islands.

 

Ocean Beach was truly gorgeous and a video seems to bring it all into light.

I hope you enjoy the peace, serenity and quiet that we enjoyed on Ocean Beach.

We also will never take for granted clean air, clean water, and a clean city with people that aren’t spitting all over the ground.

It is so nice to be able to walk around, have silence, and not hear people hacking up huge amounts of spit, and other stuff in their lungs, and then seeing them spit it out right in front of us.

It became a chore to walk outside as we had to ready ourselves for this constant onslaught of disgusting act happening wherever we went.

There were times when we just decided to stay inside our little apartment, hide from the horror of Beijing, and take solace.

Just one more freedom we have here that we didn’t have there.

And another reason we will never go back.

 

 

Day 582 OUT OF Beijing: The Beauty of Ocean Beach.

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A fisherman waits for his catch of the day at Ocean Beach.

A fisherman waits for his catch of the day at Ocean Beach.

 

Jill and I have been running like mad since we’ve returned from China.

Her site, San Francisco Tourism Tips, takes a lot of work, and time, and even though we love working on it, it does wear us out a bit.

We decided to take a day off and just cruise around San Francisco and see it as tourists instead of work.

Here a few of the pictures we took at Ocean Beach.

It is a wonderful place to spend a few hours and just relax.

 

Day 580 OUT OF Beijing: The Great Purge of 2015.

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Jill and me on the 17th floor looking out over Coit Tower and Alcatraz in the backgroud.

Jill and me on the 17th floor looking out over Coit Tower and Alcatraz in the background.

 

Jill has about 900 friends on Facebook.  I have 2,710.

I had 2.710.  I am now down to just over 1,000.

I decided, last weekend, to do the great purge of 2015.

I’ve been reading a book titled You Are not so smart by David McRaney.

It primarily deals with cognitive distortions and why we think we know or believe something when, in reality, we tend to either be primed by something or we make up reasons to justify our beliefs.

We even make up stories and memories to prove our own beliefs and this can be fairly easily manipulated.

At one point in the book, he writes about how we can only really focus on a certain amount of stories/people at one time and any more than that we lose concentration and the themes of what they are telling us.

Since Jill and I are working on our new site, our books about life and how you want to live it, and how to minimize your things to maximize your life, I wanted to minimize my friends list to have more control over who I interact with each day.

I also set a goal of only being on Facebook for 30 minutes a day for the month of January and seeing how it affected my mood and my ability to reach important goals that we need to get done for our new site to go live and our books to be published.

We need to work on the covers for our books and our bios for them.  They also need more editing and we have a lot of places to visit, people to see, and events to update for our site SF Tourism Tips and we are working with our friend on building the new website which takes time and effort.  We have our logo, which we are still in the design stage but getting close, and it will need concerted effort and not wasted Facebook time.

We are heading off to some museums today to see them and take pictures, update information, and make connections.

Yesterday we went to a local and were shown around it and treated to lunch because our site has brought them business and they were thankful for everything we’ve done.  It was really wonderful to put a person to the page and know that we are making a difference in their business and they see all the hard work Jill has put into it and that they wanted to hear her story, and our story, and how much we had in common.  It was also delicious food and we had excellent wine.

Back to this weekend and The Purge:  I just decided I want to drop people I don’t really connect with or post to my wall.  I just don’t see the need for so many friends if I’m not actually connecting and being “friends” with them.

I still have over 1,000 friends but these are people that I do actually tend to connect with in some way.  They are fellow travelers, or from high school, or salsa dancing, or somewhere else and I think they will be important as Jill and I start our life of being vagabonds and traveling the world.  They will keep me grounded by being able to check in, say hello, and also meet up on our trip around the world.

It is a pretty daunting change to think of moving to another country, after living abroad for the last 1.5 years, but as long as we can spend time seeing our friends and family in the next 6 months, I think it will work itself out quite well.

I’m excited, and nervous, to be taking on this adventure because we will be able to see so many exciting sites and locations around the world.  We will also be able to meet so many new friends.

The part that makes me nervous is being away from family and friends in case something negative happens and not being able to help or be there in time.

This is the trade off one makes when they are an expatriate.

 

You see things others may never see but you miss things you wish you were there for.

Day 579 OUT OF Beijing: Mario Robledo and Me.

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Looking cool with our shades on.

Looking cool with our shades on.

 

I’ve been trying to catch up with friends since I’ve returned to the USA.

I got in touch with my buddy, Mario Robledo, a few weeks ago and we decided to have lunch together.

I wanted him to meet Jill and just check in on how his life is going.

He wanted to see how my trip had been and what my plans were for the future.

As most of you know, I grew up in Healdsburg, California.

Healdsburg is now a major tourist area and barely resembles the town I remember from my days there.

Most people that visit there seem to love it and enjoy it because it is so fashionable and trendy.

It wasn’t that way when I grew up there about 20-30 years ago.

It was a small town that most people didn’t know about and just drove through it as they went up to Humboldt, Oregon or somewhere North of San Francisco.

I grew up working in wineries there and there was a small contingent of people the knew our wines were as good as, if not better, than Napa’s wines, but we weren’t nearly as well known or famous.

It was just voted the #2 small town in America according to Smithsonian magazine.

Back in the day, Healdsburg was a small town with a very tightly connected community.

Everyone knew everyone and if someone was in trouble, people usually found out quickly and could help each other or knew the family member and could do something useful to intervene.

An example of this is Mario and me.  We’ve known each other since 1st grade and have stay in contact most of the time since then.

We either use facebook or some type of social media, since I’ve moved away, to do that but wanted to see each other face to face this time.

Mario works in the Sonoma County Jail in Santa Rosa and lives in Santa Rosa also.  He seems to be doing well and has a 17 year old son.

He’s always been a very positive and outgoing person and this was still the same when we met for lunch.

We had burgers at Super Duper Burger and then walked around the Castro and took pictures of the murals and sites that we found interesting.

Mario does a lot of photography and has a good eye for photographs and scenes.

I’m glad we got to hang out and catch up, and that he was able to meet Jill, because he is one of the kindest people I know and someone that I trust implicitly.

It is nice to have friends like Mario, who you may not see for years, but when we do meet up, it is like we never were apart.  Things just fall into place and we laugh and joke and fall right into who we are without any pretension or worry.

I hope everyone has friends like Mario and can have this kind of connection.  It is truly wonderful.