San Francisco Vlog I Salesforce Tower Tour, Painted Ladies, Mountain View and Stanford
Good morning. It's week two in San Francisco. And we just came back from our road trip to the coast. If you want to know more about this trip you can watch it in the next episode. This week... it's actually a short week so there is just three working days and then there's sort of 4 days off. And though we were not planning the next trip. We kind of figured that it's going to be a last opportunity if we don't take advantage of this long weekend. So we are planning to do another road trip to do some wine tasting in Napa. We just started the research but it looks like it's quite challenging to find nicely designed hotels.
Hopefully we find a good option. So this is one of the tasks for thee days to come. As for the rest mostly exploring city a little bit more. Originally we wanted to spend this week going to different areas. Thursday and Friday we'll try to put plan and action of discovering some of the areas in San Francisco and then maybe couple of cities outside to see where we want to have our next apartment. Today we just going to stay in the area go to get some coffee beans because we're out and then explore the financial district and more specifically Salesforce Park and show you the Tower.
so I'm on my way to the Salesforce Park. I forgot my ID today so I couldn't go to the tower. But the park is publicly available. I have to climb a couple of escalators.
And it's a sunny weather so I think it's a perfect time to visit so I really like this park it's sort of elevated and it's like this long walk but it's pretty unique. I haven't seen the parks like this. I think probably the closest would be New York Highline that I haven't seen yet. But yeah you kind of walk in through the park but then you are surrounded by this highrises. And you can feel that it's elevated.
There's also not too many people so it's yeah it's a really nice park. I wish I had discovered it last week. Very positively surprised with the financial district area. I've been staying there for two steps away but becauseof the conference we didn't go much here. And I quite liked it. I mean it's surely high rises but it feels much nicer than SOMA and I even consider for us to look an apartment in the financial district next time.
We'll see right now I'm just enjoying the park. They also have this restaurant area so this is where I'm headed now. And I'll see if there is a good coffee. If there is I'll definitely get one.
Turns out there is a coffee shop. And this is their terrace with the view So I'm picking up some beans. They recommended this one it's a brand new. Apparently just arrived So I'm following their recommendations. Plus it's the last pack. So we'll see. I really like this place I've got a scone and it's delicious. There is quite a bit of music so I hope you have a good audio. But yeah it feels like there's a lot of like business meetings...
I kind of feel like I should have discovered the financial district earlier. I mean last week it was a little complicated because of the conference but yeah I definitely prefer this area more than where our apartment is even though it's like 15 minutes yeah and I love this coffee place So it's like right in the park. I feel it's also a good place to come with a computer work which people do. And there's like this one table with this amazing view - this is cool. and there is this whole other area which is sort of a lobby.
I'm pretty sure it's an office building of some other company. It's a very sunny weather it's really nice so yeah definitely like this place so I had pretty nice coffee in Andytown and I can definitely recommend this park. I think it's a great place to just walk around or if you like jogging it's also a great option because you just have this long straight line and... I'm not sure exactly what the distance is but it definitely feels like a great place for a jog. and just sit to around, relax, read a book, have a coffee...
You can definitely feel there is this San Francisco vibe with a lot of people discussing business. You can definitely see people from around, from these highrises. And as you can see in the background it's really green and nice space.
so very pleasant surprise I think they'll be back. And I definitely recommend it to you if you're around. Getting ready to go. And I'm going to try again to go to the Salesforce Tower because yesterday I forgot my ID so I could only see the park.
But today I'm going to give it another go and because I'm running late I'm cutting this kind of short. and we're on the way to Salesforce Tower So we're at the top of the Tower. and the view today is really amazing because it's very clear. Apparently it's not as clear every day San Francisco can get very foggy. Today we got a very clear view You can see all the iconic points here.
And right now I'm looking into the marina. So this is the view basically and and this whole thing is really big. and they're closing in 10 minutes so it's going to be a very quick visit.
But you can see all this amazing views over there from this side you can see two more bridges there you have the iconic Tower there you can see the bridge Alcatraz the actual 360 view and you can just go all around. I'm going to run through because they're closing early today there are some visitors. It's before the Thanksgiving so it's busier than usual but we've almost done a full circle. this is where we started.
I really like it here. It's a really cool space I didn't expect it to be that great Today we are planning to focus on the areas that people recommended as good areas to live in Cow Hollow, Pacific Heights and the Russian Hills. So they're kind of all in the same area. And this is also where these famous Painted Ladies. Which are actually on the wall. So we have it in the apartment but we haven't seen it.
We will probably start with this have a look at these famous houses and then walk around and just see the area. we came to the famous Painted Ladies These houses became famous because they were featured in movies, ads, and TV shows. The most famous one is called the Full House. This view became a postcard view of San Francisco. On the weekend you'll probably find crowds here trying to take a picture of this iconic sight. The square cross offers the best Viewpoint and the square itself is really charming.
It has beautiful views. And we came at a sunset so we had this magical sunlight. Area around also has number of streets with the house is just as charming and this is the next thing we are going to explore. So we are walking in Pacific Heights and I'm bouncing.
It's hard to tell actually but yeah so there is like a bunch of stairs so you should have a good grip because some of those like slopes don't have steps we had a few steps up there but here's just like a slope and I don't know do they have... well they don't have frozen roads right? it's not like Seattle? Pacific Heights is a really beautiful area. There is a lot of spots for a perfect picture You can see a lot of iconic houses and slope streets. It's also home to one of the best gelatos in town and many restaurants that would be perfect to wrap up the long day city discoveries We decided to just do a branch at home and then take a car and drive through the area.
Explore some of the outside of the city areas like Mountain View... Right now full on brunch cooking So we're done with our delicious in-house branch and I've mapped a few neighborhoods that we wanted to drive to The Mountain View, Sunnyvale and then I think on the way back we'll drive through the Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow just planning to do a quick drive-thru and then see the places that we particularly liked and then maybe stop, park and walk through a little bit but yeah the goal is just to have an idea of different neighborhoods and then see where it feels like most homely I would say for our next apartment the thing we're using is this on demand Tesla rental that is in our building which is really cool it's a little pricey so if we when I have it for a day it's like $200 which honestly it doesn't make sense compared to some other like classic car rentals but when it's an hour, especially we should have a promotion of Black Friday the areas we're going to are 30-40 minutes away so hopefully we'll do it in 2 hours and it's definitely the best solution for this kind of plan this first district we're checking out is Monta Loma recommended for like being lovely and having a lot of restaurants so we're just driving through and so far my first impression is the beautiful autumn leaves which I don't think specific to the neighborhood but to the area a lot of trees and it's pretty so we came to where the city hall is and so it's basically like Downtown Mountain View it's kind of hard to navigate and know which streets should we walk on we got a little bit of a feel of a city so there's a lot of townhouses and this is a bank, that way there is a library and this where we're going to go and then grab a coffee in one of the coffee shops here so just like make a quick tour just to have a sense of what it's like let's go so I'm waiting for a coffee and we are just in downtown and found this coffee shop and next to it there is like Vitality Bowls which are cool bowls like acai bowls and smoothies and all that So far my favorite part is actually all this autumn colors beautiful and it's sort of trees everywhere. I haven't seen that many trees in San Francisco that are red and yellow and basically autumn leafs so the coffee is here personal delivery yeah did they do a good job? oh wow yeah not bad not bad okay so I think we can live here: they got a good coffee with a doubles swan actually it's the first time I had doubles swan it also fits my outfit so that's important and croissant is good We're driving through Stanford Campus and it's super pretty We came to Stanford campus. Kind of got confused on where to park here so we didn't go to the main building but we parked where you can walk and there is a coffee place nearby so we're going to check it's nice here just to come walk around here give you an idea this is the map and we're here this is the main quad Welcome to Stanford I'm not even sure if it's main building but when you look at a Google Maps it say Stanford right here. It's a cool view let's go through the arc Spontanous travel as usual: we are not quite sure which are the spots to visit.
But this one seemed like a main square. So we came, we saw, we conquered! We can go home now Came back it turned out to be way longer I thought we're going to do a 2 hour go and back. But it ended up being almost 4 hours.
We checked the Mountain View and Sunnyvale. Hard to say if we did it the right way but we were also trying to be efficient. Conclusion is: really nice areas, both of them for a long term. There's a lot of houses in Mountain View. At least the areas we drove through. There was more houses than apartment buildings. In Sunnyvale there was more apartment buildings. So for the mid-term/short-term it doesn't really make sense I's say compared to the city.
Because the office is in the city. It's still kind of a lot of commute. I think if we are coming back here for next time, which should be a few months, Given our lifestyle best option would be finding something in Marina, Pacific Heights, Richmond and having a car. So this would be I think probably a perfect setup for the way we live in San Francisco. And then if we decide to move here for longer term I think outside of the city is probably what we would consider. But for now yes: San Francisco City close to Marine District.
Conclusion of week two in San Francisco. It's a nice city if you're in the right area. There's not as much green as I wish there was, unless you live next to the park. But the park is still quite massive so I think it's all about where you are located. It's a nice weather. So this was the second week and out of 10 days I only had 2 days that when it was raining.
You always need a jacket or a couple of layers, because it's windy. The thing I like less is how uneven it is. So one street to the other you might have a perfectly nice neighborhood and then a homeless town with a lot of tents. Different lifestyle that you're facing.
Now that the conference is over it's kind of back to normal. SOMA close to Tenderloin, and then some of the Financial District parts it's sort of hit and miss. So it depends on the time and it's kind of random to when you going to have these clean nice streets without garbage and then the next day or like one street over you can have these groups hanging around. Not the nicest experience walking through those places.
But I didn't face any violence happening. It's just very unpleasant and a little bit unsettling. The other thing to know is the most of the crimes that they sort of do would be break-ins to cars because the 5 years ago they actually decriminalized anything under a 1000€ I believe. And if they steal something without hurting people I think it's not considered a crime as long as it under certain amount.
So they kind of do less risky activities. And then the other thing I didn't mention last time but it smells weed everywhere. It's legal in California and I think in our particular floor, our particular building there is a neighbor I don't know who but they... I feel like they just have it as a aromotherapy or I don't know but... anytime we would come home it's just the whole hallway has the strong smell of weed so feels like they are smoking it all day long but yeah this is what you should expect when you walk on the streets it's just like City perfume. If you had to choose one it's probably going to be a weed.
And I think that's going to be for tonight so going to get packing and will tell you more about Napa Valey The sort of perfect plan would be find a winery that does the wine tasting and some light meal for the lunch and then just finding wineries nearby that do the tasting I don't think we'll do a tour we usually not tour people especially when we have a car so we kind of have a flexibility. We plan to maybe do a winery visit and then when we're back in the city park a car the hotel and do wine tastings that are in a walking distance So that's the plan and I will see you in our trip to Napa. Bye
2024-04-05 13:45
