Here is another place packed with visual stimuli, along with weird smells and busy sidewalks. I love roaming through all the shops, venturing deep down the aisles to hunting for all things odd and unknown. So much to see, I wish I had extra eyes!
I fell in love with San Francisco at first site, the buildings and the light, so much grooviness to dig. The signature building style I call "Wonkatecture" -a kaleidoscopic hodgepodge of giddy pioneer freedom and gilded age excess. It's a modernists nightmare! A prime example is The Vedanta Society HQ, built in 1903 to house a religious sect which fostered a multifold path to God and reflected its openness architecturally. More more more.
This one’s easy to miss because it’s dwarfed by one of the many loud discount stores on Mission selling Day-Glo flowers and phone chargers. When you find it, the inside is tiny; there’s just enough room for you, an espresso machine, and a guy or two playing great music every time. And they have egg creams!
Some areas of San Francisco are so steep that the sidewalk literally is a stairway; other times it’s just more interesting to have a stairway between streets… or a slide. I once saw a grown man with a briefcase matter-of-factly go down this slide and continue on his way down the hill. Why not?