I left Hong Kong for San Francisco on the 16th of July, exactly a month after leaving Japan and marking my return to the ‘West’ 19 months after I departed England. I was apprehensive about spending time in the US for a few reasons: I’d been away for quite a while and in that time I’d got used to the Japanese, and Asian, way of doing things, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with the US for most of my adult life, and deep down I just wasn’t quite sure what to expect. On the other hand I was also overly excited: I’d always dreamt of visiting San Francisco, I was also going to visit Seattle, New York and Canada and I was looking forward to having a month taking it easy in North America, giving me time to get used to western life again rather than jumping back into it straight after having left Japan.
With all this mind, and more than enough apprehension about having to deal with US custom officials, I spent 17 hours in planes and airports without being able to sleep, crossed the international date line forward, lost 12h in the process, passed the customs with little hassle and landed in San Francisco feeling like I’d done a very nasty combination of drugs. Seriously, screw drugs. All you need is to cross the international date line with no sleep: et voila, instant feeling mashed-up situation.
I somehow managed to make it to my hostel in downtown San Francisco. My body was 17 hours ahead of the clock on the wall, so I decided to fight off the jetlag by abusing the free coffee and chain smoking. And that’s when it all went a little weird. I was standing outside the hostel, smoking a cig, when I noticed a man on the corner of the street a few meters away looking a little agitated. Then out of nowhere, three people rushed him against a wall, pulling out their badges in the process. They then handcuffed him, searched him (yeilding what looked like a bag of non-descript drugs) and hauled him into an unmarked car before driving off. By the time my mangled brain had put two and two together they were gone and I was left wondering where the hell I’d booked myself into.
I didn’t know it at the time, but by choosing the city centre hostel I’d put myself in one of the most interesting parts of town, known as the Tenderloin, or TL. For the rest of my time in town I got jokes from locals about not getting shot and minding the crack heads. My introduction to the TL was not only totally surreal but also made me realise that in America, city centre was no assurance of a peaceful, or at least relatively ‘normal’, neighbourhood.
That’s also when I realised that spending a month travelling South East Asia is probably a lot less dangerous than a week in the wrong neighbourhood in a big American town. Exagerations aside, I soon realised that things weren’t as bad as they might seem on the surface, but still the fact is that I was well and truly back in an environment where anything ‘might’ happen depending on where you are, what time it is and what you look like. The irony being that this big hostel, full of students, tourists and the likes, is right on the corner of three of the most notorious blocks in downtown SF apparently. That never stopped amusing me during my stay there, especially when listening to some of the language exchange students talk about the neighbourhood.
The reality is that the TL was no worse than East London or any other slightly ‘rough’ neighbourhood in a big, western city. There’s weirdos and crazies about, drug deals and so on, but as long as you keep yourself to yourself and don’t behave or act cluelessly, nothing will happen. Hoody up, headphones in and walk straight and everything’s cool. Everyone was telling me how it used to be a lot rougher apparently, a story I would also get a month later in New York. One thing’s for sure, the TL isn’t as bad as some of the rougher neighbourhoods around SF, like for example parts of Oakland if I’m to believe what some people were telling me. The other thing was that being back in the west, I was no longer ‘the foreigner’. I didn’t obviously stick out as a tourist (I don’t really go for the whole map, camera round the neck, German tourist in shorts kinda look) and ultimately I just didn’t really stick out unless I purposefully tried to. And that also changes the way you relate to your environment. Yes it might be a little rough, but you can also attract a lot less attention to yourself as long as you stick to common sense and big city living.
As I found out a few weeks later, the TL is just like East Hastings in Vancouver, a dodgy part of town sandwiched between tourist hot-spots, right in the middle of downtown. Which, once my jetlag had subsided, really struck me because it’s quite different to what generally happens in big European cities, where the dodgy areas tend to not be anywhere near the downtown and tourist areas. That surreal feeling I experienced on the first day, with the drug bust and the realisation that I was in a rough neighbourhood but still downtown, never quite went away during my stay in SF. Every time I found myself going back to the TL, I’d be reminded that my ‘European’ idea of a city centre totally didn’t apply to America.
Going back to the drug bust I witnessed within an hour of arriving, it also made me realise something else, something that would inform the rest of my experience and time in America to various degrees. What I realised, and this continued well into my first few days in America before subsiding somewhat, was just how much the media had informed and shaped an image and understanding of America in my head. Everywhere I looked, the people, the places, the buildings, I was constantly reminded of TV and films I’d grown up on and things I still watched today. The drug bust served as a perfect example, as earlier this year I spent 5 weeks watching 5 seasons of The Wire back to back. Witnessing the bust was just like being transported into the series to an extent, and the mix of fiction and real life really hit me quite strongly.
Most people always express similar feelings about their first visit to America, especially to the bigger cities like New York, San Fran or L.A which have been documented aplenty in TV and movies. But to me it went even deeper. Just as I realised soon after moving to Tokyo that I ‘knew’ Japan before living there because of being raised on Japanese TV exports as a kid, I ‘knew’ America without having ever stepped a foot there. But confronting the reality of it was a lot weirder somehow, as my brain tried to separate fiction from reality. In Japan the process of realisation felt normal somehow, my memories of Japan as a kid, garnered from watching anime and fictitious lives and surroundings, matched with what I experienced quite naturally. Things felt the same, looked the same to an extent, and if anything this weird process of having grown up with a knowledge of a culture and a place but no real experience of it actually served to make me integrate and appreciate the culture and place even more.
In America though, I felt a weird conflict of sorts. The idea and image of America constructed in my head by the media wasn’t matching quite so well with the reality. Not necessarily because it was different, but because experiencing certain things in reality, like the drug bust, made me realise just how much of a preconception I had about the place and its people and how that didn’t really fit with the reality of it all. The overall feeling of weirdness this conflict gave me faded pretty soon, within a few days I wasn’t thinking about it so much anymore, but it was still there at the back of my head and stayed firmly with me throughout my stay. San Fran and New York were the two cities I spent the most time in, along with Vancouver, and there is so much about these cities that I learnt and discovered through TV, music and movies that it was always hard to shake that feeling completely. The impact of it in the first few days was something I really didn’t expect though, and it only served to reinforce the realisation that much of how I view and what know about America is influenced by the media, and distorted in the process.
Past this, my week in San Fran was a real pleasure, and the city definitely lived up to the expectations I had in many ways. I’d always dreamt of visiting for various reasons, from people telling me just how amazing and different it was to anywhere else in America, to my teenage love of scratching and later work in the turntablist world.
One thing I didn’t expect though was the weather. I landed in mid July, fresh from boiling and humid South East Asia only to realise that the weather in North California and South California are two entirely different things. For the first time in a couple of months I went straight for my hoodie and spent the week in jeans and a hoodie, something I definitely wasn’t expecting to do. Not only is San Fran windy, like HELLA_WINDY, it’s also quite cloudy and ‘cold’ even in the middle of summer. Like most people, I had this vision of Californian weather being L.A weather basically, but that couldn’t be further from the truth for San Fran.
On the plus side the weather meant that the city takes on a different atmosphere at different times of the day. In the late morning and early afternoon it was quite sunny, with some days being so sunny that standing in direct sunlight made you feel like it was really summer and gave the place the Californian feel I was ‘expecting’ in a way. But then towards the mid to late afternoon, the clouds start coming in from the ocean and the city covers up, with clouds rolling through the streets in the higher parts of town and on the Golden Gate bridge. By early evening the whole city was pretty much always covered, with cold winds dashing through the streets and clouds hanging overhead. In contrast, across the bay it was always a lot more sunny, even late into the evening. I spent one afternoon in Berkeley with my man DDay One from L.A and when we left the Haight district the clouds were rolling in, but by the time we got to Berkeley it was nice and sunny, and stayed that way.
This daily clouding of the coastal areas, which covers San Fran itself and a few of the counties and smaller cities surrouding it, was a shock at first but soon became something I actually enjoyed as witnessing the clouds rolling in, either from the bridge looking over the city, or from the coast looking onto the bridge, was a truly breathtaking sight each and every time. Ok standing on the bridge from about 3pm onwards was a nightmare with the crazy winds, but it was really beautiful. The air and feel the city takes on as the clouds roll in is in such stark contrast to how it feels and looks when it’s sunny, it’s like experiencing two different cities, two different times. As a friend told me a few days later, that is as nice as it gets in San Fran in the summer, and while it was a shock at first, I soon realised that it only added to the city’s charm. When the clouds and fog roll in, it’s a totally different place, and to me it actually felt a lot ‘warmer’ and welcoming than during the sunnier parts of the day. The mix of the city’s buildings, streets and life with the cold wind and grey sky worked like magic. And at the same time you could just look out across the bay and see the sun shining.
I rented a bike a few days after arriving. I did it for two main reasons: one was my firm intention to continue with the whole ‘biking as the best way to discover a city’ angle I’d been pursuing since leaving Japan, and the other was to cycle the Golden Gate bridge into Marin County and do a bit of nosing round there. Aside from the crazy price difference between getting a bike in America and one in South East Asia (granted I got a ‘proper’ bike but still), it proved a perfect way to explore certain parts of the city, those with minimal amount of hills in particular, and cycling the Golden Gate was a real experience. As I said though, on the way back it was a lot less ‘fun’, with wind blowing you sideways making for a really painful ride across the bridge, made a little more bearable thanks to the views from the ocean side, which you can only access on a bike.
Marin County was pretty interesting too. I decided to head towards the small town of Sausalito, as I’d left later than planned and there was no way I was going to do the biking trails in the Marin County hills, which are on the coast and get gobbled up by clouds around the same time as San Fran. As it turned out Sausalito offered a very similar experience to the bus ride from the airport into downtown Hong Kong. A little town, which sits on the inside of the bay, Sausalito is supposedly designed/laid out based on traditional Mediterranean coastal towns, the kind of places I’d grown up near having spent the best part of my youth in Nice.
Once I’d crossed the bridge I followed winding roads down towards the coast. Getting closer to the seaside, I took a turn on the main road leading to Sausalito and round the corner found myself confronted with the kind of view that I hadn’t seen since leaving the south of France: clusters of houses laid out on a hill going down to the seaside. It was surreal and, much like my experience in Hong Kong, once I found myself confronted with the view I stopped and was transported to memories of my childhood. The resemblance was striking, especially as at that point I wasn’t yet aware that Sausalito was ‘based on’ the kind of coastal towns I’d grown up around.
The town itself was far from remarkable though. The location was obviously pretty nice, with views over the bay and the city, but the town felt like nothing more than a cheap ‘recreation’ with bars, ice cream parlors and shops and not much else. In itself that isn’t much different to what you might encounter on the Mediterranean coast, the difference was that Sausalito had no real atmosphere to it, it was full of tourists, and felt very fake and prepared, in a sense like a mall does. It was all neatly laid out, and looked pretty, but once you scratch the surface you find no real substance underneath it. It’s a place for people to have nice, expensive houses overlooking the bay and the whole Mediterranean feel, but just not quite there. I spent a few hours at one of the cafes, overlooking the bay and city and watching people, and as much as it was relaxing and nice to take it all in, it was really difficult to shake that feeling of cheap, of fake that emanated from the whole place. And while these feelings did also remind me of certain parts of the French Mediterranean coast, like for example St. Tropez, there is a certain something about those small coastal towns back home that is just impossible to replicate, especially somewhere like America.
I managed to hit most of the spots on my to-do list while in San Fran. That was another big difference with South East Asia. While I didn’t really have any plan for the places I was visiting there, instead opting for a soon tried and trusted ‘aimless’ approach, I was a little more focused for my US and Canadian stops.
The Haight was a definite highlight, for a few reasons. First it’s home to one of the two Amoeba music shops in town and second that’s where a friend of mine’s shop was located, meaning I got a bit of a local’s tour and guide of the area. Oh and that’s where I had my first burger in nearly two years, at the excellent Burgermeister spot. Heavily recommended! The main thing about Haight is that it’s one of the parts of town that truly feels like the image of San Fran most people have: hills laced with Victorian style houses just like those you see in the movies. Past this though there isn’t much to Haight apart from the feeling of ‘deja vu’ you get from walking its streets and wondering what it’d be like to own one of these apartments. The beach and coast isn’t too far away, and is definitely worth a stop, while Golden Gate Park and one of the two main universities are next door. By and large Haight is and feels like a residential district, but one that still has a lot of appeal. I enjoyed the time I spent there, especially walking around the more touristy part of the neighbourhood with its mix of locals, hippies, tourists, fine shops and kids hanging on the streets.
In comparison, downtown and Fisherman’s Wharf both felt a lot more touristy and in a sense alien. While Haight definitely had a neighbourhood feel to it, that thing which I’d been told makes San Fran so different to a lot of other major American cities, Fisherman’s Wharf felt a lot like Sausalito in a sense: one big tourist attraction, all shiny and polished but with little substance underneath it. Blocks after blocks of shops and restaurants facing the docks and loaded with countless of the city’s major tourist attractions like the seals, clam chowder soup and the likes.
Downtown was more of the same, with the financial district providing a sort of break in between them, but one that still felt cold and was just visually attractive with its cluster of skyscrapers sticking out of the otherwise relatively low skyline of buildings. I decided to take one of the traditional cable cars after dropping my bike back at Fisherman’s Wharf on my first visit there, and still can’t believe that I bothered with the insane wait. After about an hour and a bit spent waiting in the increasingly chilling winds, I made it onto the side of one of the cars, hanging on while getting more lashed by the winds. Still it was worth it, as the car ride does provide some incredible views of the downtown area, which seems to alternate between small residential neighbourhoods similar to Haight in feeling and more touristy or business areas.
The one other part of town I really enjoyed was Richmond, where I ended up spending a fair bit of time. Situated between downtown and the coast, Richmond isn’t particularly attractive on the surface. It’s all blocks after blocks of similar looking buildings, with a very American feel to it. But on one of the streets running parrallel to Geary St, which is the main street running through the area, there was a wealth of restaurants, bars and shops which I found myself hanging around for a few days. I think it was Post St, but I can’t remember. Fact is though it was really nice, and totally strange as the area felt quite non-descript and not so attractive on the surface but was actually quite vibrant and interesting underneath, something the more touristy areas lacked. As with my belief that suburbs hold a lot more interest and appeal than the more obvious destinations in most big cities, Richmond proved that the neighbourhoods you expect the least of sometimes yield the most interesting results.
I went for a drink and some food there on my first day in town, but it was on my second time there that I really enjoyed it the most. I returned at the weekend with my friend Mike, who lives in the area, and he took me to a couple of spots that really stuck with me. The first was a local food joint called Q, which offered big hearty brunches blending Mexican and Soul Food into a really tasty combination. The whole feel of the place was also totally in line with this idea of San Fran I had as a very unique place in America. We then walked around the same part of the neighbourhood which I’d been in a few days before, but this time I was seeing it in the daytime as opposed to late night, and that’s when I realised that it was also one of the Asian parts of town, with a big concentration of South East Asian, especially Vietnamese, shops and restaurants alongside bakeries, restaurants and other things.
Again what was odd for me was that as you walked around the place exuded a neighbourly feeling even though it looked quite plain and unnappealing on the surface, the kind of place you would drive through thinking there wasn’t much to see or do. Mike also took me to this absolutely insane tea shop which proved a highlight of my SF trip. Mike and his girlfriend explained how this shop was run by this Chinese guy who looked like he was constantly wired on coke, but was actually just wired on tea. We stopped there on the way back to theirs and I realised that he wasn’t lying. As we walked in the dude appeared, looking totally off his nuts and speaking like he was wired. He gave us one of his ‘tastings’, which was not only educational (I discovered a whole bunch of stuff about tea I never knew) but also comical, as the dude was busting jokes and behaving like a bit of a wired loon. 30 minutes and about 5 or 6 different teas later and I was pretty wired myself, especially after he got us to do some ‘tea shots’, which consisted of tea in a shot glass necked in one go and washed down with more tea. Past the comical aspect though, the guy obviously knew his stuff inside out and the tastings were really interesting, especially the discovery of a certain strain of Oolong tea called ‘Milk Oolong’ which tastes like it has milk in it and smells buttery!
I also visited San Fran’s Japanese district the next day, on my way to see The Dark Knight. It was quite an interesting place to visit given I’d spent 18 months in the country. Unlike Chinatown or even the Asian part of Richmond I’d seen before, the Japanese area felt a lot more like a ‘normal’ neighbourhood with the main difference being the street signs written in Kanji and Kana and a cluster of buildings and a little park in the centre of it marking the area’s Japanese heritage. It’s also there that I had the best Japanese food since leaving Japan, with a very tasty Katsu-don and miso soup, so if you’re thinking of getting some Japanese food while in SF you definitely need to head there for it as I tried a couple of other spots and left sorely dissapointed.
A few days later I went with Mike to a party in the Mission district, an area quite famous as the home of some of SF’s nicer clubs and best burritos. I combined both in a handy double combo. The club night was pretty sweet, and once we’d had a few drinks Mike took me to El Farolito, a local burrito joint that’s apparently quite renowned. And what an experience it was. My first burrito was definitely one to remember, and I must admit it made me reconsider my belief that a good kebab is the best drunken food. Burritos and kebabs are now in a firm joint first as far as I’m concerned when it comes to ‘best things to eat when drunk’. It was so big, in keeping in line with American culinary standards, that I finished it the next day at the airport. As I was told multiple times while in town, if you’re going to eat a burrito in SF you got to get one from the Mission, and that’s word.
By the end of it SF had definitely lived up to expectations. There’s something about it that definitely feels quite unique, I don’t know if I would call it European as a few people who told me about it have, but once I’d spent more time in North America it definitely was one place that had a certain something to it that makes it stand out from the more traditional American cities or experience. While I’d always dreamt of maybe moving to SF one day, after spending time there I don’t know if I would do it so willingly anymore, though I must admit it’s definitely a place that I think would be easy to live in. It also provided me with my first real experience of America, and once the feeling of surrealism I felt in my first few days had subsided, it proved to be a really good experience and a great way to start my trip in North America. It’s a really exciting and vibrant place, with a mix of people and cultures that feels very natural, like London does. Unlike London though it also has breathtaking natural beauty and a geographical layout that makes it feel a lot bigger and space-y than London, something which I liked but which ultimately I’m not as attracted to as the feeling of claustrophobia (in a good way) and closeness you feel in places like London, or even Tokyo.
Big up to all the homies who hooked me up, helped out and took me around during my stay in SF especially Alex, Joren, Mike, Jenn and Dave Mochipet. I owe you all one.
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