5th December, 22:57

After bidding farewell to Mike, I began my walk to the De Young Museum, after my morning internet party. The walk to and through Golden Gate park was exceptionally nice today, as it was sunny, no clouds and quite baking so resorted to just a t-shirt. I took a similar, though slightly more intriguing path to the park and wandered into the De Young in a surprisingly sweaty state. Luckily I had to check my bag into a cloakroom so I could dry off somewhat. I quite enjoyed the museum, everyone was friendly, some good art and ancient sculptures and best of all I came across a Edward Hopper painting, I think it was called "scene of New Orleans". Very good. There was even a Charlie Sheeler as well, and I don't even remember any all black paintings. Though some all black sculptures existed. There was another beautiful painting called, A Ranch On The Plains by Peter Hurd (in high tech zoom-able glory), that was excellent, but then I'm a sucker for orangy warming sunsets and long shadows. There were some photos as well, including two of Audrey Hepburn looking stunning as normal.

There was also a giant spork.

And a house sized paper clip.

I went up to the observation deck, and looked out in stunned confusion as my city of paradise had been invaded by opaque fluffy stuff. So much so you couldn't see more than 2 blocks away! Once more Mother Nature had won the battle of modern art. As my ticket game me free entry to Legion of Honour as well, I decided to walk the very long trek there as I am a glutton for punishment.

It was unfortunately a disappointment, apart from the cookie and coffee I had, it was all just fine art, or something, which was as dull as it was tedious. Too many portraits and religious pomp. I then started the long walk back, but went along Clement Street, which has quite a few interesting oriental shops and restaurants. I stopped in Apple Books which was a cool 2nd had bookshop, and nearly bought Crisis of Infinite Earth, but nothing had prices on and I fear much expense as it was heavy. Adn they didn't have Kerouac's Big Sur, which I need. After finally reaching the hostel, I set abhout finding ways to avoid postcard duty, like cookies, talking to Damien, who was heading off, and the internets. I then went and got an extremely spicy Thai green curry. Those sneaky Thai's with their subjective use of the word "medium". It was nice though, except the Sierra Nevada beer was a bit pants. There were some cool and strange hippies sitting near me that were having an argument about levels of various masters of the world, with Jesus being one of them. Also something about Arc Angels evolving from humans, twas all slightly bemusing, and eventually one stormed out in a huff.

When I came back, I chatted with Cheung for a while, my sole room-mate, and learned that anywhere down of Geery Street is dangerous after dark. Whoops. Also turns out he was in Legion of Honour when I was in de Young and vice versa. He prefered LoH, though this preference may have been related to his degree in fine arts. Also I should really use the cable cars instead of destroying my feet in torn, decrepit skater shoes.