46 hours in the City -- Friday

On Friday morning, we left for Berkeley at about 9:30. We arrived at 11 and parked near People's Park, a couple blocks from Telegraph. The first place we went was our favorite noodle house, Slurp, where we had Pad Thai and watermelon juice.

We walked up and down Telegraph a bit, but didn't really go in any stores, even Amoeba Records, which we normally do. We got back in the car and headed to the Claremont area to Dark Carnival books, which is always fun. Then finally to Ohmega Salvage, where I looked for medicine cabinets, but didn't find any I liked as much as the one I saw last time, which I should have just bought then. Oh, there was also a very creepy picture for sale. I thought about my friend Gynagirl, but she's more into velvet.

Finally we headed into San Francisco, where we took 101 south to 280 East to the area that borders Daly City, right next to the zoo. We drove through some of the nicest houses I've ever seen. Our motel was built in 1937, and is very Art Deco. It's about two blocks from the ocean and you could pitch a rock at the zoo from it.

Then we drove to the Exploratorium. Well, there was a little accidental detour almost onto the Golden Gate Bridge first, but THEN we got to the Exploratorium, which is housed at the Palace of Fine Arts.

This building was built for the 1915 World's Fair, if I'm not mistaken, and was meant to be temporary. It's absolutely stunning. But the best part is the Exploratorium. We got there around 3 and ran around touching stuff until 5, when we had tickets to the Tactile Dome. I could have spent at least another hour looking at exhibits, though. It is the coolest place. It's like any museum, I guess, in that its purpose is to educate and collect stuff, but you can touch and play with everything there. It's designed to be completely interactive. This is us inside a model of a prism.

And here is Sweetie in a mask (this exhibit is designed to show how much of others' mood we take from their facial expression).

Next, we went into the Tactile Dome. It's a Bucky ball (geodesic dome) with a number of pathways that have slides, stairs, rope ladders, bouncing air-filled jump-house thingies, pits full of styrofoam, etc. Along the walls are keys, stuffed toys, bubble wrap, shoes, fur, etc. And it's all pitch black, so you have to feel your way around to get anywhere. It's so fun we went through three times, even though it meant sitting in the tiny feet-stinky waiting room with a VERY EXCITED little league team ("I wanna go with Miles." "No, it's me, Miles, Mason, and Finn." "But! But me and Mason haven't gotten to go yet!" "Guys, I know the way! Let me be first!"). The guy in charge of the room was a 24-ish year old guy named Jesse who was, against all odds, trying to reason with them instead of just telling them to shut up. ("If you were in there and you called for help, wouldn't you want me to be able to hear you?") Poor Jesse. He looked so harried. This is what we walked through on the way back to the car. Pretty, huh?


Then we left, and it was getting late. We were hungry. We headed back to the Sunset District and ate at a place I had been once before, Taraval Okazu Ya.

Sweetie was starving, so he ordered three rolls and beef terikayi and miso soup. I ordered four rolls. Of course, he was expecting that what he ordered would be much, much smaller, and even though he ate himself into oh-god-I'm-so-full-ness, he still had leftovers. I, on the other hand... well, I still got really full, but my rolls were smaller. I am officially in love with the umeboshi, shiso leaf and cucumber roll. MMM.

The last thing we did on Friday was walk to the beach. The sand was oddly black, like oil-spill black, and we found it creepy, so we didn't walk around. Then we lolled around saying "I ate too much" until it was time to go to sleep.