Adventure #5 -- Union Square Adventurette

Adventurette - Marty

Description: Go forth into the depths of the San Francisco jungle (Union Square) and observe the native and imported fauna and flora.


(Marty's Report):

After being out for the day, eating at Old Jerusalem down in the Mission and then picking up the car from its little overnight at the mechanics, we got back and did a serious dose of cleaning. That time was mostly taken up by the bird cages, what Bill from "John From Cincinnati" referred to as the "poop machines," and then some miscellaneous chores and making holes in the walls (a shelf, and Heather's frames that have been sitting in the hallway for a month).

Then after getting up from my evening meditation, I suggested: 1) Going out to the ocean to watch the sunset; or 2) Going to watch the crowds down at Union Square. Option 2 was both of our choices.

So off on the scooter and shooting down Geary we arrived at the newly-dark Union Square, one of the few places in town that actually feel like a city. We poked around in Game Stop for a few minutes, and talked to a sweet young geek, sharing sighing anticipations of BioShock2 (out in the Fall!), and then headed up the street to watch a street band.

Here's Heather watching the band, whose lead singer looked and sounded, and played songs from the playbook of, Jimmy Hendrix.

Heather thought I was at least as uber a drummer as the bands traps handler. I humbly agree. The trio was a rough looking bunch, and didn't sound half bad.

Then up to the cafe within the huge Borders Bookstore, at the corner of Union Sq., which was filled with late night (8pm) readers and computer tappers. With no place to sit, we headed out onto the street, and found an elevated spot at the other corner of the Square, overlooking the band across the street, and the apparently coked-out street drummer, one of these class of dudes who bring their bits of metal and pickle buckets, and do 16th notes endlessly on their different "instruments." It's fun the first couple minutes, like most drum circles, and then you realize that the dude is not listening to himself or to the universe. Sort of a drum machine without the perfect spacings.

Here's our spot (my new uber camera has a cool nighttime setting, on the right here). Several tourists accosted us to take their picture next to one of these big heart sculptures that have popped up around town the last few years. This one was done in a sort of graffititi style, with a bunch of odd stuffed bunny, a pink one of which seemed to have a hand growing out of its head, that was flipping off the heart's admirers. We sat and drank our coffees there, and watched what Jim Morrison from the Doors used to call the Soft Parade, then went back and bought a stack of books on Egypt, and rode home.

And here's some videos of our adventure(tte):









(Heather's Report):

Never mind this photo. Marty chose it. I didn't have coffee out at Union Square, I swear it, even though it may look like it. I've sort of made a pact not to drink coffee past three pm. And this was way past my bedtime. Marty's gotten all phone-happy with his new uber phone, which I have to admit, is slightly cool, although I found the fact that it has a 5 megapixel camera in it to be quite amazing. Although I really shouldn't, this day and age, they could probably fit a 12 megapixel cam in your eye.

So, onwards to the adventurette, although I don't really see it as a mini-adventure. Full on, baby! I've always liked people watching, especially in a diverse city such as San Francisco. And the beach is damn cold anyway. So off we flew to Union Square, racing the light sinking out of the sky (so after 7pm!) but didn't beat it, thus Union Square in the dark. Well, as you can see from the photos and video, it's not exactly dark as Union Square is lit up probably all night long. Lots of people frequent the area until the late closing shops shut down.

So we went to some of those shops ourselves, Game Stop, natch, because we're gaming nerds, then the bookstore, because we're book nerds. And we needed stuff on Egypt. So drinks, I got some chocolate thingie without coffee and we went out to sit on the square where it was getting a bit chilly, hence my whack hoodie. We got a lot of requests to take pictures of tourists in front of one of the cool art hearts around the city, one parked in Union Square in front of us. We listened to the crazy drummer and the pretty good street band. Although Marty could have taken the drummer in a drum-off any day.