4th December, 21:11

Well, today was an action packed extravaganza of multiple attractions, wasn't it. Getting up at a moderately decent time, I headed down to the California Academy of Science's temporary location. It was mainly an aquarium with a small amount of natural sciences. It's new location in Golden Gate Park looks like it's going to be totally amazing, with it's own mini rainforest and 200,000 gallon tank and coral reefs, which you could see them growing in some labs. Many small humans appeared to be running around aimlessly, but many participating in many acts of cuteness.

After this, I walked towards the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, but was first distracted by a shopping centre called Metreon. Which is most excellent. On top of grabbing a coffee, I explored a cool arcade they had, and a geeky, but still cool comic book shop similar to Forbidden Planet. I prevented myself from buying too much and made it to SFMoMA. Which the damn hippies had designated it Free Tuesday, even though I had a city pass already. No matter, I went in and checked all the same crazy all black canvases. There were some very interesting photos by Jeff Wall, and a very weird sensory area at the top that I got partially lost in, and nearly paniced. It was still interesting even if I couldn't take photos to prove it's existence. I sauntered back to the Metreon to grab a roast chicken Caesar salad with red peppers, button mushrooms and broccoli, mainly to make up for the pizza yesterday.

I also had a Mr Pibb which turns out to be a viable alternative to Dr Pepper, see "Lazy Sunday". At this point I realised I had left my bag in the SFMoMA cloakroom and so went to collect it...

Next Stop: The Da Vinci exhibition at the Metreon, which was extremely good. They had on display replicas of his notes and paintings with an informative audio tour. They had also constructed most of his engineering ideas and some were "hands on", so I thoroughly enjoyed it. Well worth the $20, even if the audio tour was a bit of a rehash of the text.

Walked back through a slightly dodgy area and returned to find I had no clean clothes. So it was laundry time and I chatted with Mike for a while. He once got held by customs for 14 hours in Missouri, which is manic. I also found out that a few blocks away, is a neighbourhood called tenderloin, which is full of gang-related roughness. Which I may have just walked through this evening. Anyway, some police stopped mike from walkthrough through there at night so he wouldn't get beaten up. Cool.

Early night tonight. Wham.

4th December, 09:00

After realising the immense pain and discomfort I'd put myself in, I decided my best course of action was to run up the steepest road in the world, or at least that I had seen. And although I got some nice photos at the top, my heart and soul nearly gave up on the way.

I recovered in the hostel while interneting and the such like. New Aussie from melbourne in room now, though he's only staying 2 nights. Sleep was extremely hot and someone was talking in their sleep, which always disturbs me. I also fell asleep still listening to straylight run.