The Art of Zen
Today I plan to walk through Chinatown, with a detour to the Grace Cathedral. It’s an interesting walk – there is a large Chinese population in San Francisco and the whole of Chinatown feels authentic – English is spoken as a second language only. I forget to do my planned detour at the closest point, so end up walking a long way out of my way to get to the cathedral, but as it’s mostly uphill, it at least warms me up. Since I’ve been here I’ve learned the quote attributed to Mark Twain: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco."
Grace Cathedral is lovely, lined with stained glass windows. One window is a modern design of the solar system, which stands out compared to the rest. There is also a labyrinth on the floor. If you follow the path through all its winding ways, it leads to the centre. Supposedly, this will help you focus. You then follow the same path back out. It’s all very zen until a young boy ignores the advice to leave at least a minute between people and follows directly behind me for half the path, changing my calm, focused zen thoughts to annoyance. I have to work extra hard to zone him out. I’m sure there’s a lesson I could learn from this: ignore that which you cannot change?
I stop for a dim sum lunch at a busy little Chinatown restaurant. They sit me opposite a random stranger who is also on his own. I am probably the demise of his zen moment. I order two small-ish plates and start chatting with my table friend. His name is Sergei, he’s Russian, and used to be a professional skier. He has ordered the Peking Duck, which when it arrives is mammoth, so we share it. I may have destroyed his zen, but I’ve received food karma in exchange. After lunch, I stop at a fortune cookie factory for dessert. My fortune says good things will happen on the weekend. I like the sound of good things.
At the end of the walk, I catch the BART out to Mission. There are some political murals out there that sounds interesting and I’ve decided to go to a swing dancing class out this way as well. The murals are not easy to find. No-one seems to know anything about them and the whole area is off the edge of both of the maps I have. There is a map in the station that shows my destination, Balmy Alley, so I attempt to commit that to memory and start walking…then realise I can’t possibly be going the right way as I am heading into the middle of nowhere. I go back to the station and convince the platform guard to let me back in so I can check the map again. I get it right this time and find Balmy Alley, which is a colourful lane between the backs of two rows of houses, where all the fences and garage doors are painted. The area is largely Hispanic and it seems a lot of the murals deal with immigration issues and separation from family.
I have a couple of hours until the dance class, but decide to head closer to the venue before I stop for dinner. I walk and walk and walk. It’s miles away. I get to a point where there are no more restaurants, but I think I remember reading that the club has a restaurant, so I figure I can hang there. Nope. When I finally find it, it is in a back street and is just a hall. The teachers are there already and advise me on the only restaurant in the vicinity, which is across the road. It’s quite a trendy little place. The waiter recommends their burger, so I decide it’s time to see if anything can compare to the GBDB burger. It’s good, but doesn’t meet my high burger standards. I think perhaps I still don’t like burgers, and the piggy burger was just an exception.
Back at the hall, the intermediate class is just finishing. I prefer to join a beginner class in case the style is different. This one is pretty much the same as I was doing in Dubai, so it’s a review class for me and a good chance to meet a few potential dance partners. After this class, they do a quick intro class to balboa which is great. I’ve never tried it before and pick up the starter steps pretty easily. It’s then on to freestyle, with a live six-piece band. Quite a few people join just for this and there are some great dancers there. I dance quite a bit, mostly with an older guy called Stan.
I’m a little worried about the safety of the area we’re in, given that I still have to work out how to get back. I ask Stan if the neighbourhood is okay to walk around and he kindly offers me a lift. I know technically he’s kind of a stranger, but he’s a dancer and that’s enough security for me. This gets me home a lot earlier, but it’s around 1am by the time I get to bed as I have to be packed ready to store my bag in the morning. I’m heading to Las Vegas a day early as I can catch a cheap flight rather than enduring a 14 hour bus ride. I also have to be up early to get to the Alcatraz tour.
Sleepless in San Francisco
I’m not impressed at around 4am when one of the girls comes into the room having had a few drinks, and proceeds to wake up her male friend and talk and giggle loudly for the next hour. I consider asking them to leave the room as it’s official quiet time, but I hate confrontation, so I forsake more sleep.
I drag myself out of bed in the morning and catch the F tram down to the pier to line up for the Alcatraz ferry. The boat ride is chilly and there are not enough seats inside. I snag a seat on the back deck, which is slightly sheltered, but still cold enough that I have my hood on and hands clenched in pockets.
Once we pass Sausaulito the fog lifts. The sun makes an appearance as we land on Angel Island. Angel Island was used by the military as a processing centre for a long time, but was also used as an immigration station for Asian immigrants. They had different requirements as their visas took longer to be processed, so they were dealt with here. As part of the tour we have a free hour-long tram ride, which is actually quite good. It’s not really a tram, more of an open bus thing, but is quite educational and goes round the whole island. There are some spectacular views of the harbour and the Golden Gate Bridge half hidden by fog.
Back on the ferry, we sail back into the fog and cold for our landing on Alcatraz. It is a fairly barren little rock island with a few huge buildings still in good repair, and a few smaller ruins. It was a military prison before becoming a state penitentiary and some of the ruins are from that time. It’s very well organised. There are free ranger talks and an audio tour of the main part of the prison. I’m happy just to do the latter as I want to make sure I get back to San Francisco with plenty of time to catch my flight. Our ticket allows us to catch any of the regular return ferries from the rock. The audio is well done as it explains the history of the prison, but also has snippets from ex-cons and guards and talks about what it was like, the major escape attempts and some of the characters involved. With three levels of cells on each row, it looks like the prisons you see in the movies. It has an eerie vibe, but this is subdued by the sheer volume of tourists getting in each other’s way.
After ferrying back, I collect my stuff from the hostel. I’ve booked a shuttle to the airport as it costs an extra 80 cents over public transport and I only have to drag my rucksack as far as the hostel door. This also means there is less chance of me destroying the few remaining buckles – my rucksack is being held together by knots, safety pins and luck.
The flight is just over an hour, so we land at dusk. I can just make out the mountain ranges that ring the incredibly flat piece of land that is Las Vegas. I’m not sure what to expect, but I’m quite pleased when I walk outside and the humidity hits. It feels a little bit like Dubai and I am happy to be warm again after foggy ‘Frisco. I wait for a public bus and the young guy next to me, an exchange student from Romania, gives me his spare bus pass, which turns out to be valid until the next evening.
When I arrive at the TOD Motel, I’m disappointed by how grungy it is, but reserve judgment. I spent a long time debating whether to get a better hotel in Vegas as the rates are cheap during the week, but this place had positive reviews, so I’d gone with it. Mistake. It is at the far end of the strip past a few dark blocks, so not safe to walk around. Even the neon sign outside flickers and one letter doesn’t work. The place has such a dodgy feel that I check the shower and drawers to make sure there are no dead bodies or murder weapons to be found. I have two nights booked and paid here. I try to log in to the internet and discover the WiFi doesn’t work in my room. Normally, I would just go and use the public areas, but I see this as an opportunity. I throw a mini-Dubai style tantrum at reception, explaining that I booked the place because of the WiFi and this was really not good enough. They offer to refund me or give me a discount. Score. I try and book something else but it’s now 10pm and none of the places seem able to do same-day bookings, so I sort something for the next day and keep my first night at the hovel. I’m so tired by now it won’t matter much. I pop down to the convenience store with one of the guys staying there (as I mentioned, not safe to walk around) to grab a snack and then lock the door with all available bolts and sleep.
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