Yolo of the Month: August

There's a mindset that I'm able to get in--particularly when traveling--of wanting to and then actually following through on doing whatever suits my fancy. I think it comes in part from knowing you have a limited amount of time and wanting to pack in as much as possible, but there's also that emotional state of just feeling very free. Maura calls this "yolo"-- "You Only Live Once." I think I discovered it for the first time when I was in New Zealand. There were so many places and experiences I ended up in because I'd just decided "Why not?" And those turned out to be some of the best, or at least some of the most memorable.

It's been a long time since I've felt like that in a place I actually live. When I came back from NZ I vowed that I'd embark on more "staycations" and do all the touristy things you always say you're going to do, but then never get around to because you're too busy doing all the things you have to do. I've gotten a little better, but last weekend truly lived up to the yolo spirit.

Almost the best part was that it started like any weekend, with Friday Night Ritual of couch time and a very lazy Saturday morning. It's like I was already back in the school year (also because I was at school until like 5pm on Friday. UGH). On Saturday, my friend Dave suggested we go to the De Young to see the Birth of Impressionism exhibit. How very cultured. I was slightly concerned about getting tickets--other people I knew who have gone bought their tickets way in advance. But this is where we stumbled upon stroke of luck #1 for the day. (Actually, this was stroke of luck #2. #1 was finding a parking spot on a Saturday in Golden Gate Park, and #1.5 was that said parking spot was right outside the lawn bowling club. Who knew?) When we got to the De Young, two women came up to us asking if we were going to the Impressionist exhibit. They had planned to see it, they explained, but couldn't find parking so decided to come another time. Did we want their tickets? Obviously, yes. This was even more exciting because it turned out that the exhibit was completely sold out. Score.

The exhibit was fantastic. Very well put together. I had to secretly thank Ms. Giles and the PHS Humanities team that I actually recognized a lot of the paintings and the history behind the birth of Impressionism. "Ah yes," I said to myself (and to no one else because I didn't want to sound pretentious), "I remember the internal struggle of Edouard Manet as he wanted so desperately to be accepted by the Academie des Beaux-Arts..." Another important sighting at the De Young was a man wearing everyone's favorite wolf shirt, unfortunately (fortunately?) in what I think was a non-ironic way.

From the De Young, we consulted Dave's former-gourmet-chef friend's list of top eats in SF and found the Arizmendi Bakery, a cousin of Berkeley's Cheeseboard. The pizza was in my opinion equivalent, and now I know I don't have to drive to the East Bay for such deliciousness.

It was late afternoon, but we were on a roll so we decided to hit up the fortune cookie factory in Chinatown, an adventure we'd been talking about for awhile. And it's an adventure indeed--a small little shop tucked away in a seedy looking back alley. We walked past the alley twice before we actually found it. Inside was a cramped little operation, definitely more factory than shop. There's a genius machine that squirts out batter into little round molds then rotates them through an oven until a woman picks the warm cookies up one at a time, sticks in a fortune and folds them in half. Very impressive.

My fortune was eerily accurate: "Take time in the upcoming week for much needed relaxation." This could not be more true as I was about to embark on my first week back at school after an extremely refreshing summer. HOW DID YOU KNOW, FORTUNE COOKIE?!?!

As Dave and I were driving back to drop him off at home, he told me to make an extra turn. "There's one more place I want to go." He'd heard about Pirate Cat Radio Cafe on Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations," and wanted to try their Maple Bacon Latte. Yes, it's made with bacon fat and obviously it's delicious.

The Pirate Cat Radio Cafe is exactly what the name implies--a pirate radio station. Such a weird little operation. The cafe only had enough seats for the two of us because there was a band, the Hypnotist Collectors, about to play for a radio broadcast. And they were really good. We stayed and listened to their whole set. Was this all part of the Yolo Gods' master plan? Dave's fortune cookie says yes.

As we were leaving, we thanked the band, who promptly offered us one of their CDs and invited us to the show they were playing that night. Why not? So much for going home on a Saturday to write lesson plans. The concert was in some boutique hotel that I never would have pegged as a hipster enclave. I'm sure this is not its regular clientele, but I loved the juxtaposition of upscale lounge and consciously-unshowered wannabe counterculturists.

In the morning, there was more yolo-ing to be done. I'd heard about the walking tours of San Francisco and now after three years of living here I finally got around to doing one.
The Mission murals I'd hoped for wasn't happening this weekend, so the Castro seemed like a good second option. Current and future visitors: I cannot recommend these tours enough. The tours are run by volunteer guides sponsored by the SF Library and the SF Parks Trust. And they're free. At least on my tour, our guide was extremely interesting, knowledgeable, and excited about this job. I especially appreciated the combination of history and architecture. Now I look at every building in San Francisco trying to identify which type of Victorian it is. I also now have some background on streets and sights I've seen over and over. I love knowing that the Walgreens on the corner played an important role in the AIDS crisis, or that the hardware store used to be a theater. So many little things you walk by and don't notice--you can't help but wonder what else you're missing.

A few more stops in SF before finally getting back to reality. All were just places one might stumble upon, including some Mission murals (sans tour guide) and thrift shops (scavenging for future Halloween costumes and/or my transition into the hipster aesthetic). Most exciting was the Levi's Workshop, a space on Valencia that Levi's rented out for the summer as basically an open art studio. It's all focused on printmaking and they have a couple of different old printing presses and a big screenprinting area. During the week, it's used by artists-in-residence and other more-creative-than-me kinds of people, but on Sundays they open it up for the public to use. Unfortunately it was all booked up for the day, but they did have an opening for the following Sunday. See future blog posts for the fruits of my typesetting ambitions. It was pretty amazing--just a place for people from the community to learn about these art forms and actually try out the heavy machinery.

One of the most amazing weekends I've had in a long time, and that includes my recent weekend in Quito. How is it that I don't do this more often? It's not like any of the agenda items were difficult to find or were special occasions. I guess it just takes the right mindset, and it doesn't hurt to have an activity partner who encourages your adventurous side.

I should have bought a bag of fortune cookies at the factory to see where they would take me next.

The FC in The NYT

Even the New York Times recognizes the magic of our fair city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/us/08bcintel.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&emc=eta1&adxnnlx=1281924002-6h4/f5XG5sNVkXkdEPnTcQ

Points of note:

-I have said it over and over that the water is dyed. No water anywhere is that color, except maybe in a toilet bowl. Also, I highly doubt that the dye's main purpose is to keep algae from growing. Let's tell it like it is--Foster City must look like a postcard 24 hours a day.

-I enjoy living in the "Boats and Boat Parts" neighborhood, but am not-so-secretly jealous of those who live in "Stars and Constellations" or "Islands." I am currently coveting a residence on Polaris Avenue or Pitcairn Drive. Flying Cloud Isle and Shooting Star Isle are tempting too, but those sound a little too much like places I would have invented as vacation spots for my My Little Ponies.

-How has Foster City not suffered any damage from natural disasters? I moved here with the full understanding that our idyllic green lawns would be the first thing underwater in the event of any seismic activity. I consider it a small price to pay.

-I haven't made it to the windsurfing classes yet. It's been on the docket for two years now, but with this being the last weekend of summer, it looks like I'll have to wait it out a little longer. I think the Galapagos were an acceptable substitute.

Black Sea Turtle Cove

Alas, we are coming to the end of my Ecuador pictures and stories. If you've actually read all my posts you may be sick of hearing how awesome our trip was. But not as sick as those people whom I forced to look at all ~1,000 pictures and video clips while I sat next to them babbling.

On our final day in the Galapagos, they managed to pack in one last excursion before we had to catch our plane. We had sailed all night from Espanola back to Santa Cruz and I was actually happy to get up at 6am given the poor night of sleep I'd had. I'm happy to report that neither Maura nor I got seasick at any point, but on night 3 the side-to-side rocking was so extreme that I had to splay myself out on the bed to keep from being rolled around. But I will take this over throwing up all night, which was the fate of some of our shipmates.

The early morning excursion took us to Black Sea Turtle Cove, a huge system of mangroves on the northwest side of Isla Santa Cruz. There, differing habitat meant a new array of animals. Here's the list of what we saw:

• Blue-footed boobies (of course)
• Pelicans
• Some black bird that sits on pelicans' heads and tries to steal their fish
• Cattle egret
• Eagle rays (smaller than the big guy we saw at Devil's Crown)
• Golden rays (who travel in packs)
• White-tipped reef sharks
• Herons
• Sally Lightfoot Crabs (as always)
• Sea turtles
• Starfish
• Frigate birds

The rays might have been my favorite, again because they're so graceful, but also because in the calm water of the mangroves, there were times when we could see their little wingtips poking up above the water as they swam.

The other amazing thing about Black Sea Turtle Cove was the sheer number of birds and bird activities. There were huge flocks of cattle egrets dotting the trees, blue-footed boobies swarming the skies Alfred Hitchcock-style, and pelicans diving left and right. Of course I took video.

In this one, you have to look closely, but you can see a blue-footed booby diving all arrow-like into the water.


Here's another shot of some boobies diving, swimming, taking off, and generally being awesome.


Finally, I had to take video to capture just how many birds there were. Why are they all facing the same way? I have no idea.


And thus ends my adventure in Ecuador and the Galapagos. Now it's back to adventures in the classroom where, frankly, I'm a little less interested in seeing creatures in their natural habitats.

Punta Suarez

Note: the videos seem to be doing some weird cropping when they're embedded, so click on them for the full view.

Just in case sunning and swimming with sea lions wasn't enough for one day, we spent the afternoon walking around Punta Suarez on the western tip of Isla Espanola. By this point I was getting used to everything exceeding my expectations by infinite proportions, but I don't think I was prepared for what we were going to see at Punta Suarez. To give you an idea, soon after we got off the dinghies and started down the trail, our guide asked, "Does anyone want to see blue-footed boobies doing their mating dance?" I was ready to borrow binoculars from someone, but not only were the birds in plain sight, they were literally standing on the trail. Unreal. They kind of stopped by the time I pulled out the video, but you can get the idea from the beginning of the video where they're picking up their feet all cute-ly.



I should probably devote a little bit of text to the marine iguanas. They're not very cute and they're everywhere, so I've kind of left them out of these entries. It's like when you're on safari and at first you think, "OMG, there's a zebra! Let's take 100 pictures and look at it for a long time," but pretty soon it turns into, "Meh, there's another zebra. Can't they do something cooler than stand there and be all stripey?" (Yes, I am aware that I have led a privileged life.) Even Darwin was unimpressed: "The black Lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large (2-3 ft), disgusting clumsy Lizards. They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl & seek their prey from the Sea. I call them 'imps of darkness.'" But marine iguanas do something cooler than sit there like zebras: they are the only reptiles who swim. That's pretty sweet to be able to say you're the only one in an entire phylum that will submerse yourself in water. So that's the marine iguana for you: disgusting and clumsy, but also a kind of cool freak of nature.




Apparently we picked a good time of year because this is when the waved albatross come to Espanola to nest before their next journey around the ocean. More things to check off my list of things I never thought I'd see: albatross sitting on their nests, albatross chicks, albatrosses walking (which might be the funniest thing ever), albatrosses doing their mating dance, and albatross taking off in flight. And of course all of this happened within like 20 feet of me.






Once again, I've run out of words to describe how amazing this all was, so here are the pictures. As usual, click on something to see the full album.

Snorkeling Espanola

We did two snorkels on Espanola. The first was right off the beach in Gardner Bay. I didn't get very good pictures because this was when my camera lens was at its foggiest. Boo. There was, however, a sea lion who decided to take an active role in my film, and inadvertently created a clip for my Galapagos blooper reel. It's a little embarrassing because you can hear me yelling as the sea lion swims up close, but in this case I'd say a little public shame is worth your enjoyment.



Our second snorkel was unquestionably one of the most amazing experiences of my entire life. The itinerary had hinted that we might get to actually swim with sea lions, and I was already more than satisfied with the ones I'd already been underwater with. As usual, the Galapagos had more in store for us.

There was a little inlet on Espanola where I guess sea lions like to hang out. And play. If there was ever any question that animals can have emotions around leisure activity, this cleared it up. I felt like a pet, and the sea lions just wanted to play with me. They're obviously better swimmers than people could ever be, so they glided around the water doing flips and teasing us. My favorite thing--that I definitely had to get used to because that's what scared me in video posted above--was that they would swim up close to your snorkel mask, and then right before they touched you would flip away. I was definitely as dumbstruck and clumsy as a little puppy who's still falling over his own feet. I don't say this kind of thing very often, but swimming with the sea lions was almost spiritual in the way I felt connected to creatures from another species. If this is what it's like to commune nature, sign me up for the next hippie retreat.

And on that note, here are the pictures. Click to look at the full album.



Note how graceful the sea lion is in the water compared to on land.


Just in awe.

Gardner Bay

After only a day and a half in the Galapagos, we had already seen a good share of sea lions. They were hanging out on buoys and boats in Puerto Ayora, basking on the rocks and beaches of Floreana, and one even swam close enough to me that I got a picture during our first snorkel.

But we should have known by then that everything in the Galapagos ends up better than you ever imagined. You want pretty water? Oh, we have endless stretches of technicolor blues and aquas. You want tortoises? We have every baby tortoise on the Islands. You want stingrays? We have them in all shapes and sizes, on the beach, in shallow water, and following you as you snorkel. You want sea lions? How about sunning yourself on the beach with them. When I look through guidebooks and postcards, they always have the best shots of cool things you know you'll probably never actually get to see. In the Galapagos, I ended up with experiences that topped the guidebooks and pictures more beautiful than any postcard I could find.

There's not much to tell about Gardner Bay--the pictures show its magic. It's a long stretch of white sand beach on Isla Espanola (alternate name: Hood Island). And it's covered in sea lions. They're just chilling on the beach, more or less ignoring all the humans oohing and aahing over them. These are not the fat smelly sea lions of Pier 39 either. They're a little bit smaller, a whole lot cuter, and significantly less smelly. I guess that open sea air in a highly protected national park is a little more ventilated than the tourist-packed San Francisco Bay.

Anyway, the pictures show it best (remember to click on the slideshow to see the full album). One note on why some of the pictures look funny. My "great investment" of a camera (which really was a good investment just for the few underwater pics I got) decided that it would be really funny if the lens cover fogged up. I have no idea how the water got in. Fortunately it did not completely destroy my fifth camera in five years, but it does make some of the pictures look foggy and/or really artistic because I messed with them on my computer.


Of course I took video. There might not be anything cuter than walking sea lions.


Oh wait, there is something cuter: walking BABY sea lions.


This guy was one of my favorites. He just wanted to hang out in the waves and roll around in the sand. Note to self: if I can't come back in my next life as a house cat, Galapagos sea lion would be an acceptable second option.

Snorkeling Floreana

Before I get into any descriptions, let me make one comment: an underwater digital camera was the best investment ever. So worth it.

We went snorkeling twice on Floreana--another example of how well GAP Adventures, our highly recommended tour company, packed so much into a very short period of time.

The morning snorkel was in a rocky area near the shore. Check out the pictures of the rocks because they fascinated me. They look like large, well-stacked bricks. I had to remind myself a few times that this area was not man-made.

The only issue with snorkeling was the temperature of the water. They encouraged us to rent wetsuit, an offer I jumped at. Speaking of jumping, getting into the ocean felt like jumping into an ice bath. Every time I got in I had to spend a few minutes just catching my breath from the shock and working up the courage to put my non-wetsuit-covered face into the water. So cold.

But of course totally worth it. I judge those people who didn't go in every time for the entire time because really, when will you get another opportunity to snorkel in the Galapagos? This trip wasn't billed as YOLO style for nothing. Once I finally put my face in the water, I found that it was like staring into an aquarium. I am spoiled to have been snorkeling in many exotic, fish-stocked locales, but this was by far the best (sorry Great Barrier Reef). On recommendation by the internet, I took some video because it is much more difficult than you think to steady your camera for good underwater shots.

Here, some white-banded angelfish.


And a big old parrotfish.


The most exciting part of the morning snorkel was--and I don't know the proper way to describe this--a giant cloud of fish. A couple people from our group summoned us over and below us were more fish than I'd ever seen in one place. Again, this is not a very scientific description, but it was like those silver fish in Finding Nemo who make all the little faces and pictures. I took video because still photos just didn't capture the size of the fish cloud.



The afternoon snorkel was at an area called Devil's Crown. It's the top of a sunken-in volcano, so you just see a circle of jagged rocks sticking out from the water. The snorkeling was good here, but I got fewer pictures/video because the current was a little stronger so I was busy trying not to drown. One highlight (captured in the photo album) was seeing a puffer fish. Ton, a Dutch guy from our group, tried to swim down and poke at him so he would puff up. I was tempted to do the same. Fortunately this bad, bad idea did not come to fruition since it turns out that these fish are highly poisonous and their spikes put out deadly neurotoxins.

Here, not-so-dangerous yellow-tailed surgeonfish.


Beating out the pufferfish, the biggest highlight of Devil's Crown was a sighting we made right as we were about to leave. As we were being called to get out of the water, someone shouted to look down. There was a massive eagle ray, gently gliding through the water. The video doesn't capture its size, but I would estimate its wingspan to be 5-6 feet. Rays aren't necessarily the first thing that comes to mind when you think "beautiful animal," but this one was so graceful that it was hard to think anything else.