Golden Gate Park

As I stated earlier, I am staying in the Mission, a really crazy cool part of San Francisco. It's really hard for me to leave this area every time I want to go on an excursion, because I always bump into something intriguing and get distracted. This picture, for example, was taken one block away from my front door.



WTF!!!! They are SUPER HERO MASKS!!!! MANY OF THEM!! I am highly entertained by them whenever I pass the store, which is every day. I can just imagine all these overgrown boys donning them and zooming around pretending to be Green Lantern (which by the way is a weird name for a superhero) or the Hulk. So you can see why it is exceptionally difficult for me to get on a train to leave the glory that is the Mission.

Today however, I succeeded in leaving the Mission! I went to Golden Gate Park, which surprisingly is very far from Golden Gate Bridge. It's huge, and is the location of several museums, San Francisco Botanical Gardens, a couple lakes, etc. I didn't even get to see it all.

One museum is the De Young Museum which is connected to a very high tower with a good view. I didn't actually go into the museum, but I climbed the tower. Or rather, let the elevator climb the tower for me (there was no self-climbing option). You can see the tall black tower in the background of this picture.



I like this picture because the old couple taking it was so concerned with how it came out. They were about 65, and the man took the picture. He seemed like he really wanted to make the picture good, but was unsure of how to do so, so he kept looking at the camera with a face that said, "Like this?" His wife was very supportive of him, and then afterward gushed, "What a lovely picture! Oh, and your beautiful skirt in it too." The thing I am sitting in front of is an old vase from the 1890s that I don't remember anything about.

I sat on a table in the De Young Museum just to rest my feet, and there was this little Chinese girl running around the room. There were paintings along the wall, which had ankle-level ropes in front of them to prevent people from getting too close. The little girl was running up and down the room between the ropes and the paintings (i.e. in the prohibited area). Every time she ran the length of the room, I'd hear "thump thump thump thump thump thump thump." When she saw me on the table, she wanted to get up too and her dad lifted her up. I think her father was thoroughly freaked when I took this picture. Then she thump thump thumped over to me, and told me she is 3 years old when I asked her what her name is.



I also went to the California Academy of Sciences Museum, which was amazing. They have a "Living Roof," which means they covered the roof with plants and solar panels. Here is me in front of the roof. I look sheepish because I feel sheepish asking strangers to take my picture. It's sort of like I am asking them to be my paparazzi.



One last thing that makes me silly: This morning I noticed that the sponge was especially stinky. My sister told me you can microwave a wet sponge to clean it, so I decided to do that. I set it to 13 minutes, planning on stopping it early. I was in a rush to talk to one of my apartment-mates because we wanted to fix the apartment's internet (which we then fixed, hence the ability to post this)...and forgot about the sponge!!! We fixed the internet, and I thought I smelled something oddly soapy, but just closed my door and ignored it. Then I left for the park. I got back today in the evening, and went to heat something up. When I opened the microwave, it was covered in black and there was a small pile of ashes in the center of the microwave. The ceiling of the microwave is also indented a little where the fire must have damaged it. It still works though, it's just a little burnt and strange smelling. Oops! ...And it's too late to confess, I already lied about it!