We love San Francisco!!

This weekend was the first weekend we’ve had to really explore San Fran proper, and boy do we love this city! It really suits us (Northern California in general), and apart from the occasional grimace on Christopher’s face when work gets stressful, we’ve been all smiles since we moved into our lovely apartment.

On Friday night, I had a chance to check out the local scene in the Mission District (unfortunately, Christopher got stuck at work). While I was somewhat afraid to step into the area (I heard about recurring shootings on 24th street), I didn’t find it at all threatening. In fact, I liked the vibe. I’m sure we’ll be hanging out there quite a bit as it’s the city’s hip spot for folks our age.

On Saturday, we woke up to his-n-her home-serviced shiatsu massages. The masseuse was referred to us by my aunt, and she came to our apartment with massage table in hand! She was fantastic (and cheap), and we can’t wait to have her over again.

We then spent the rest of our day walking around the city. Due to the under-developed mass-transit system which compels people to drive, nobody in this city walks. When we were out here in May, we would ask people how long it would take to get from point A to point B. The immediate answer everyone gave was “30 minutes.” Sometimes, we’d arrive in 5 minutes, while other times, we would walk a full hour, check the map and find we were only half way to our destination. Guess not many people walk so they could never give us a proper estimation.

We left our apartment and headed to the Civic Center Plaza where we had plans to watch our very first concert in the Bay area. Along the way we saw lots of ‘colorful’ Tenderloin folks, including a lady who was trying to get her baby crocodile to go for his morning pee…in the middle of the sidewalk! Though we had our camera and it would have made for a great photo, we were more concerned with getting away as quickly as possible.

The Civic Center is home to the opera, symphony and most of SF’s major theater. The plaza looks more like the Royal Palace in Madrid than an appropriate location for HARRY AND THE POTTERS (the opening band was DRACO & THE MALFOYS) :-). I think we were the oldest people in the crowd, even older than the parents with kids! But it was a whole lot of fun, silly really with a number of fans dressed as their favorite Harry Potter character. And it was such a beautiful day to be out in the sun. One of our favorite songs of the afternoon was “SAVE GINNY WEASLEY FROM THE BASILISK.”

On Sunday, Christopher had to stay home and put in a 9-hour work day (I know, sigh!). I went and got dim-sum with my aunt & cousin. I think I’ll have to agree that San Francisco has even better food than New York -- I can’t wait to try sushi at Japantown next.

We’re posting pics of our new apartment, the view, and for the Harry Potter fans, some photos of the concert from Saturday. Isn’t our new place just lovely?