 |
| California 2012 |
Saturday 12th May - United managed to lose my luggage twice during my trip, both times in somewhat understandable circumstances, but one cool thing that they do sometimes is put the Air Traffic Control communications through one of the audio channels which is great to listen in to. In Sydney an American guy spied my uke and we proceeded to have a short jam in the departure lounge. My first impressions of San Francisco from the approach were the banks of fog extending out to sea and swamplands around the edge of the bay, and of course the very hilly terrain. I arrived at SFO, eventually figured out the BART vending machine for a train into town, I walked the last few short blocks to my hotel which was a bit shabby (and there was a neighbouring exhaust vent roaring day & night), and I never quite figured out the taps and remote control, but I was out and about virtually the entire time so it sufficed.
First stop, via lunch, was to buy a 110V USB phone charger which turned out to be very handy - WiFi is becoming common enough that I could touch base with the outside world without too much inconvenience during the entire trip; and the pictures that my phone takes are comparable to those of my still camera. I spent the afternoon walking around trying to convince my body clock that it was not the middle of the night; I strolled down Market Street with diversions to watch - from a distance - the filming of a stunt car, which had several city blocks barricaded off. I continued along the Embarcadero, and then jumped on a double decker bus tour of Golden Gate Bridge, which was spookily draped with fog, and some of the other sights nearby. Much of the bridge approach resembled a wrecking yard with extensive piles of smashed up concrete and mangled girders - perhaps another bridge was being recycled? After the tour, the late-afternoon fog encroached over the Fisherman's Wharf area and set everyone shivering, my solution to keep warm - a clam chowder dinner - was moderately successful. A cable car ride back to the hotel and at 7pm I crashed out for a long, long sleep.
 |
| From California 2012 |
Sunday - I'd hoped to tour Alcatraz, but with a couple of cruise ships in town it was already sold out for the day, so I booked it for the following afternoon. My bus tour ticket was still valid so I used it to explore other parts of the city - lots of the distinctive architecture and prominent fire escapes as a reminder of the city's historic disasters. Later on in the afternoon I checked out the How Weird Street Faire - there was lots of doof music, elaborate costumes, interesting aromas - it struck me as being a very San Francisco sort of event. Dinner over WiFi and another well-earned sleep.
 |
| From California 2012 |
Monday - I checked in early for the NetSuite World 2012 conference, which was starting that evening. I took a ferry to Larkspur in Marin County to attend a lunch at "Jason's" for the local branch of a club that I'm in, it's always great to get off the tourist trail & meet some locals. There were lots of great views of the bay and bridges - and marshes and prisons, during the 35-minute trip; on the way back there were some Giants fans getting into town early for the evening's ballgame. I had a mad dash to Pier 33 to catch my Alcatraz ferry and had a fantastic late afternoon exploring the island. It's a spectacular location and the presentation of its history was top-notch. I'd been told by Uni to look out for a friend of hers, Jamie - but I'd completely forgotten up until when I had to hand my audio tour back - I checked out the attendant's name tag and it was her! I complemented her on how clever it was that everyone's audio tours tracked out different routes through the prison so that people wouldn't congregate and the tour didn't become a procession, but she said that everyone's tour was in fact the same, people were just getting lost.
I took a tram back to catch the opening night of SuiteWorld, and then a Muni bus to Madrone Art Bar for Motown Monday, where I caught up with Uni and Jamie and met some of their other buddies - it was a huge day & night, and heaps of fun! Uni has a new CD out and it's terrific.
 |
| From California 2012 |
Tuesday - I had a full day at the conference, meeting all the vendors, & lots of other delegates, attending the keynotes & meetings - another packed day. The presentations were great although NetSuite's business intelligence did not seem to extend to geography; their world map had the New Zealand flag posted in Tasmania. The Asia Pacific manger took his regional attendees out to a swish dinner which was terrific, it was great to swap ideas & experiences with other delegates and vendors.
 |
| From California 2012 |
Wednesday - jetlag had finally caught up but I battled masterfully - and somewhat successfully - through the morning sessions of the conference, including having to find somewhere to 'hide' my suitcase (stashing it under a table); the conference people had said it was too big to cloak, and the hotel wouldn't take it because I had been staying elsewhere. My plan for the day had been to leave in the late afternoon for Monterey but I became increasingly amazed by the lack of public transport from San Francisco. I expected regular buses and/or railway services to be running up and down the coast, but the best I could find was a Monterey Airport Bus which was very expensive, and impossible to book unless I had a flight number and local mobile phone. I had been offered a couple of lifts leaving at lunchtime and in the end I accepted one from Denise and her carload from Eugene, Oregon, who I managed to catch just in time - they were able to swing past & pick me up. (It was a shame to miss some of the NetSuite sessions but I'll be catching up online.)
It was a great trip - we swapped uke stories and compared notes as we went through a bunch of localities that I was intimately familiar with as the bases for many of the world's great technology companies. We visited some of Denise's friends for a cuppa & it was nice to see a Californian house from the inside for the first time. The traffic was a challenge at times, and the navigation wasn't always as simple as the maps and directions suggested, but we arrived at the Asilomar Conference Grounds for the West Coast Ukulele Retreat. The resort consisted of a collection of very grand, and old, lodges (I was in "Scripps") with communal meeting & dining rooms. There were several other organisations holding conferences concurrently with us - there always seems to be a correlation between ukulele gatherings and mental health events and this was again the case, with a Mental Health Conference being our dinner neighbours. It was fantastic to see up with Jim again after having met him on his visits to Melbourne, and to start to get to know the other attendees over the opening night dinner and instructor showcase.
 |
| From California 2012 |
Thursday/Friday/Saturday - we had daytime workshops & 'slam jam' practice in our assigned groups, generous cooked meals & gourmet tea breaks (which included choc-coated strawberries the size of small apples) prepared by the predominantly Mexican staff, and some spare time for socialising and exploring. I took a range of workshops, with an eye out for any instructors that we could invite to future Melbourne Ukulele Festivals. These workshops covered a variety of music styles & techniques, predominantly Swing for ukulele, the stylings of Roy Smeck, tropical rhythms, finger picking, soloing and some other party tricks. I think there were about 60 or 70 ukers, mainly from California and surrounds. The age group was a bit more mature than other uke gatherings I've been to - I was younger than most - I suspect that although it was great value, it was priced a little bit out of the range of many younger enthusiasts. There were some terrific characters. I've noticed that there's often parallel personalities in all the different uke groups and as I met people I was having fun mentally mapping them against MUKkers; "so this person is playing the role of so-and-so".
During most breaks I headed down to the beach just across the road, as did many of the other attendees. It was mostly bright & sunny but didn't quite fit my previous impressions of California: everyone was well rugged up and the water was bracingly cold. I waded in a couple of times but after a minute or so it actually started to hurt from the low temperature. I had wanted to go for a dip but the cold was too intimidating, though I did see a couple have a quick swim.
On Thursday evening we had a campfire sing-song (I tried to lead "Long Way" but to my surprise no-one knew it), on Friday there was a massed singalong (I redeemed myself by teaching "Jolene") and I enjoyed a late-night jam with some of the fabulous players in the Scripps lounge later. On Saturday there was an open mic where I played my Brass Traps song, "Reboot" and stuffed it up quite badly - however this meant that I got one of the best responses for the night, I'd have much preferred to have nailed it though! I also got to play with a couple of the small group performances.
Also on Friday evening I also made good use of Asilomar's WiFi to listen in to the Hawks beat the Dockers using the AFL Android app - it was fantastic that the technology all worked a treat and my muffled cheers attracted some bemused looks from other guests in the stately common room.
 |
| From California 2012 |
Sunday - the curtain came down on the retreat, I'll look forward to keeping in touch & hope that you all make it down to Melbourne, meantime - happy uking!
Denise was kind enough to offer me a lift back to San Francisco (after teaching me the "G IYQ" song) and we took a couple of side tracks - firstly we detoured south just slightly to take the 17 Mile Drive around the Monterey Peninsula - a very fancy and expensive-looking neighbourhood which includes Pebble Beach and other golf resorts, lots of very exclusive suburbs, and great nature views - full of sea lions, otters, forests and the Pacific Ocean. We then turned back towards San Francisco. Late in the afternoon after our break in Salinas, I fashioned a pinhole projector (with 2 bits of paper - one with a millimetre-sized hole in it) and observed the moon's silhouette start to move across the sun for the 2012 Annular Eclipse, and with about 15 minutes to go before the maximum, and after singing "Black Hole" to the carload, we pulled over onto a side road for the experience - at first I felt that I might be imposing on my fellow travellers by asking if we could stop for a moment to get a good view, but I think they were more excited than I was! Around 90% of the sun was covered; a couple of hundred km further north observers saw the moon passing right across the sun but not blocking it out - leaving the edge of the sun visible as a ring. (It was cool to hear that friends in Osaka and Tokyo also had the perfect view of the eclipse as it had passed right over them a few hours earlier.) We had the about the same amount of sun visible but the moon was just slightly to one side, leaving the sun as a thin "crescent-moon" shape, but curled around more at the ends. The maximum eclipse was around 5:30pm and light in the sky became a little eerie, our eyes adjusted so that it didn't really look darker, but there somehow seemed to be greater contrast... the colours seemed a bit different. We tried a few different ways of viewing the eclipse; the most reliable was the pinhole projector although the sun's image was only a few mm across. We also tried to put polarised sunglasses at right-angles but it was too glary, and we found that the internal reflections in prescription glasses also gave a clear image if you shielded your eyes from the sun itself.
The moon continued on its way and so did we. As we entered San Francisco some fog blew across giving us a direct view of the sun looking like a cookie with a bite out of it. The guys dropped me back at my hotel - thanks for a stellar day!
 |
| From California 2012 |
Monday/Tuesday - I embarked on the Extranomical 2-day tour of Yosemite National Park. Our driver tried to make a bit of a performance of his tourguiding which was somewhat dreadful. However he navigated us safely through Oakland and Dublin, past the rolling treeless golden hills covered in canals & windmills, breakfast at Oakdale & then up New Priest Grade Road, to our first main stop at Tuolumne Grove to see the Giant Sequoia trees - the world's heaviest living things (or something). The short hike was a good test for my ribs - I had injured my chest in a fall just before leaving (a subsequent scan when I was back home confirmed that there was no bone damage, I'd just torn something) which was a little bit uncomfortable to sleep on, and I was quite sore if I tried to breathe deeply but worst of all was sneezing which felt like a punch to the ribcage which would leave me seriously winded, so I took great precautions against the start of any sniffle! I made it through the walk OK but a bit gently. The trees were monstrous but it was hard to take it all in, it was a bit difficult to get a good view. We progressed on to Yosemite Valley and I was immediately blown away by how spectacular it was. Wherever you were and wherever you looked, it was breathtaking (notwithstanding my ribs)! And I continued to be impressed by how well the Americans maintain their National Parks - lots of facilities, harmoniously blended with the surroundings.
After the early start and annoying bus ride, I topped up the energy levels with lunch, and then caught the shuttle bus (much more user-friendly and efficient) to Curry Village where I'd booked a cabin tent - effectively a small hut with canvas sides & roof, complete with double bed, electric light & power points. Then, under glorious skies and with a pocket full of almonds (courtesy my roommate at Asilomar) that I needed to eat so as to not attract bears with any leftovers, I set off for Mirror Lake. This was a nice easy walk that would cover a fair bit of flat ground, so not too taxing on the sore lungs. Some Germans asked for directions but wouldn't believe me when I told them where they actually were. I'd hoped to walk a loop but a rock fall had closed one section of the track - in a way, a good reminder to be aware of any potential instabilities in the precipices soaring overhead.
I was zonked when I got back to camp. Unfortunately I couldn't suppress a very painful sneeze; I slept OK but spent most of the next morning feeling like I was going to keel over - until the pain suddenly lifted (mostly) at around lunchtime. I struggled through the buffet breakfast, amazed at the amount of food everyone was consuming; then I took the shuttle back to Yosemite Lodge and found some great flat-level walks - in the crowds around the base of Yosemite Falls, and then along the northern edge of the Valley past the Ahwahnee and then back to the lodge. The views in every direction were stunning; there were friendly critters all around, plenty of people in the main locations but heaps of space and solitude.
The tour bus turned up for the return journey; this driver was much more engaging, thankfully. We picked out some barely visible climbers on the immense face of El Capitan and were told how they take perhaps 5 days to scale the entire height, setting up hammocks mid-cliff and hauling their provisions up behind them. Then we set off on the long, tired drive back to San Francisco, stopping for some spectacular sunset photos on Treasure Island. It was an amazing experience to visit Yosemite and I highly recommend that everyone should go!
 |
| From California 2012 |
Wednesday - I was up at 5, having rightly ignored everyone's advice to book an airport shuttle, the BART was fine by me. Except for having to dodge a panhandler that was insisting on trying to help, despite my polite but firm refusals. It felt like the city was deserted at that early hour until I hit the airport which already had big crowds. Next stop - Montreal!
Impressions of San Francisco
- A couple of times there were major motorcycle ride-bys - one time with cruisers, and another they seemed to be mainly Vespas
- I quite liked the pedestrian crossing countdown that tells you how many seconds you have to reach the other side - a good hurry-up! I saw these throughout my North American trip.
- Not so pleasant was the intrusive pan-handling, and the guy taking a dump in a doorway :-P
- It was cool to see a Westfield shopping centre in prime position in Market Street
No comments:
Post a Comment