workout–reward

I have a love-hate relationship with the hills of San Francisco. On one hand, they make for a beautiful city setting. On the other hand, they are a b*tch to walk up every single day. But back on the first hand, they offer amazing views of the bay, and provide natural workout equipment. At least I don’t have to join a gym.

Workout:

Reward:

2012 so far…

Happy belated new year from SF! Not much going on but work and praying for snow. A random selection of photos from New Year’s Eve and the 18 days since (from my phone – excuse the not-so-great quality)…


From the top: a beautiful sunny New Year’s Eve day in San Francisco!; happy 2012; our NYE party was a “hats and mustaches” fiesta – Seb really mastered the look; my mustache ticked less on my glass; New Year’s Eve with our friend Jon; New Year’s Eve concert at the Fillmore – Trombone Shorty (a fabulous musician from New Orleans); grilling hot dogs and veggies on the fire pit at Lake Tahoe; a gigantic pine cone found on a Tahoe hike; Dine About Town party at City View at the Metron; glistening view of Yerba Buena Park and downtown

it’s christmastime in the city

The Union Square tree is up and the palm trees are twinkling – must be the holidays in San Francisco! (Please excuse the bad quality – taken with my phone.)  

the stairways of russian hill

I have a small fixation with the neighborhood of Russian Hill, the hill directly to the north of mine (Nob Hill). It started when I first started exploring outside my own neighborhood and realized how many pretty houses with great views were on Russian Hill. Then, I started coming across its many staircases, walked through its small gardens and discovered a couple of “hidden” laneways (not quite so hidden as some of them, most notably Macondray Lane, are actually in San Francisco guidebooks), and I became completely enchanted with this flowering, idyllic neighborhood. It’s European-like, with charming homes that sit off the steps, hidden from passers-by by wooden gates and lush shrubbery. Many of the staircases are beautifully landscaped, with small ponds and fountains, palm trees and lots of flowers.

There is a long loop I walk that takes me up or down all the stairways that I know of, to date. It’s 3.4 miles, round-trip, and depending on how often I stop to enjoy the view of the bay and how much I jog versus walk, it takes an hour or two. This is a fantastic time of year to do it, as flowers are blooming everywhere.

I start by heading east from my apartment on Pine Street to Mason Street, and then I turn north for eight blocks, which takes me to Vallejo. This is the first staircase – a beauty, which leads into Ina Coolbrith Park with its wonderful hilltop perch that affords great bay views.

Click here to follow the rest of my route in photos.


Stairways on Chestnut Street (left) and Green Street (right); click here to follow the rest of my route in photos

yoga on the labyrinth

I found a new place to do yoga last week, and until I go on some awesome yoga retreat on a tropical beach, this is probably the coolest place I’ve ever done yoga – in a beautiful, Gothic-style, Episcopalian church. Yes, you read that right – yoga, a practice with deep Hindu and Buddhist ties, in a Christian cathedral, complete with stained-glass windows and a labyrinth on the floor. Grace Cathedral, atop Nob Hill, is only a block from my apartment and is a popular tourist attraction, as it sits directly across a small park from the grand and historic Fairmont Hotel. It’s not as old as it looks, but its pre-1906 earthquake history dates back to the Gold Rush. It’s a beautiful church, and I love that I now have a reason to visit every Tuesday evening.


Photo by Marlith via Wikimedia Commons

biscuits and blues

Last week, we had a night out on the town at Biscuits and Blues, a retro blues club/dinner theater near Union Square that serves up a side of blues music with its Southern cuisine. The basement venue is dark and cozy, with big booths lining the walls where I expected to see 50s-era men in white jackets sitting with girls in poodle skirts. The food is not to-die-for, but it’s good enough if you stick with the Southern classics (the best choices are the fried chicken and the pulled pork), and the music is great. All in all, it’s a fun night out in downtown San Francisco, and it’s the closest thing we’ve found so far to the beloved jazz cellar in Perth.  


Photo courtesy Biscuits and Blues.

neighborhood eats

Lahore Karahi is one of my favorite places to eat in my neighborhood. It’s five blocks away (straight downhill) and serves up cheap, delicious Indian-Pakistani food in a totally bare, un-atmospheric restaurant in the Tenderloin. I don’t go there for the atmosphere. I go there for the lahori chikkar choley (garbanzo beans), the palak methi aloo (spinach and potatoes), the naan and the sweet teenage waiter who is always friendly and adorable. I consider the straight-uphill, five-block walk home an excuse to eat too much.

good grub

There’s a cozy neighborhood restaurant about a block from our apartment called the Nob Hill Grille that has become our preferred spot for brunch, but last Saturday night, we discovered all it has to offer for dinner, as well. The place is always packed on Saturday and Sunday mornings—their good brunch is no secret (I can personally attest to the deliciousness of the French toast, breakfast tacos and huevos rancheros). It’s not, however, packed at dinnertime, so we weren’t sure what to expect. Between three of us (my mom was in town on a 12-hour layover on her way to Singapore), we enjoyed French dip sliders, a colorful autumn salad, sweet potato fries, “magic” mac ‘n’ cheese (the magic is bacon, of course) and seriously fantastic braised beef short ribs over garlic mashed potatoes with a balsamic glaze. The perfect food to send Mom straight to sleep when she boarded her overnight flight.

a little hitchcock under the stars

The San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation hosts free screenings of favorite movies in local parks during the summer. We caught the latest one, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, in Union Square last weekend. Union Square isn't really a park, per se. For one thing, there's no grass, so sitting on a blanket on cold concrete wasn't the most comfortable experience, but the location in the shadows of the square's tall, historic buildings was perfect for this particular film, about a guy who spies on his neighbors through their windows. Cinema at its finest, and cheapest.

Union Square in downtown San Francisco