Yesterday’s photo was actually of Coit Tower here in San Francisco. Today’s photo was taken the same day but it’s of the view from Coit Tower. This is looking East towards the Ferry building. I like the way the tree leaves frame the top of the picture.
Note: This is blog is more than just a photo blog. Normal posts resume August 1st.
Tags: coit tower, ferry building, Photos, San Francisco, skyline, view
I live fairly close to Coit Tower in San Francisco. It’s a tough hike up a steep hill to get up there but once you do get there, you get a great view of the city. You also get to see a statue of Christopher Columbus although I have no idea why they decided to put a statue of him up there. I love the way he’s juxtaposed with the tower in this photo.
Note: This is blog is more than just a photo blog. Normal posts resume August 1st.
Tags: christopher columbus, coit tower, photo, pictures, San Francisco
We went and had dinner at AsiaSF. The transgender dancers perform on the bar in the middle of the restaurant. I adore this photo I got of one of those dancers in action:
Tags: asia sf, dancing, kathryn vercillo, Photos, pictures, transgender
Today’s photo was actually taken a couple of weekends ago at San Francisco’s Pride Parade. I didn’t get too many good shots of the parade itself since it was so jam-packed down there but I got a few good ones of the various people who had come out to watch the Parade. Here’s one:
Tags: glbt, kathryn vercillo, people, photo, pink, pride parade, San Francisco, san francisco pride, sf pride
All around San Francisco are these sculptural hearts.
This one is in Union Square along with several others. I love checking them out when I’m down there.
However, I also love it when I stumble across one while I’m just walking through the city. That was the case with this one:
Tags: hearts, images, Photos, San Francisco, Travel
I don’t actually spend as much time in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park as I should. I really love this part of the city. I really love that a city which is so geographically small can support a park that is so big. ( It’s larger than Central Park, I believe.) I just don’t make it over there nearly as often as I ought to.
There’s so much to see in Golden Gate Park that it really requires multiple trips throughout the year to check everything out. I recently compiled a list of twenty things to see in this park and the list doesn’t even scratch the surface of what you could check out there if you wanted to.
My problem is that I don’t trek over to that side of the city very much. It’s really only a few miles away from me but it’s a couple of bus rides to get there and there’s always so much else to do in the city that somehow I manage to miss out on that part of San Francisco a lotl.
The other problem is that I always see the same things when I go to the park. I stick to the limited area around 9th Avenue where there’s a cluster of attractions – the Botanical Gardens, the Japanese Tea Garden, the deYoung museum, the California Academy of Sciences … If I have guests in town then I’ll see a few other major attractions like the windmill and tulip garden. Otherwise, I don’t venture around the park much.
I’ll have to make that a goal for this year – to see and do more in Golden Gate Park!
Tags: attractions, golden gate park, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, parks, San Francisco, things to do, Travel
I have just written an article for this week’s HubMob series over at HubPages. The series is a weekly series in which writers from around the web contribute their thoughts on a specific topic. This week’s topic is real estate. There are already articles up about things like real estate as an investment. My article is all about why I choose to live in San Francisco, the city with the highest real estate prices in the nation except for those in New York (and that’s only if you count Manhattan alone and not the other boroughs).
In summary, the article basically tells readers that I love San Francisco enough to choose to pay the high cost of living here. But that makes me sound a bit resigned. And the truth is that I don’t really mind the high rent here even though I complain about it sometimes. Because the thing is, the high rent keeps San Francisco from being a place where people just end up. You have to work to get here and you have to work to stay here and that means that the people who live here really love it here. It makes for a happy place filled with people who like where they live and I think it’s worth a pretty penny to live amongst that.
Don’t get me wrong. There are times when I hear stories of other people living elsewhere and think for a moment that I’ve made a mistake. Just yesterday I was told the tale of a happy couple in a small town in North Carolina who earned less than $9000 between them in income last year but it didn’t matter because they own their car and home outright. A few weeks ago my mother, who does real estate in Tucson, mentioned that she had to collect $350 in rent from someone. He lives alone in a house with a yard. I pay more in two months for my no-yard apartment than he pays for rent in an entire year. So yes, sometimes I think twice about the choice I’ve made.
But most days, I wouldn’t trade a lower rent for the life that I’d find anywhere else. I love San Francisco. What I lose in rent each month, I gain in not needing a car (which means I walk which also means I don’t need a gym membership) and free entertainment and life that I love. It’s not right for everyone and I can see why people wouldn’t want to pay what it costs to live here but I don’t think I’d ever have it any other way.
Tags: california housing, housing, hubmob, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, real estate, San Francisco, sf real estate
One of the most popular posts on my blog San Francisco is Sexy is a post that I did highlighting seven different phallic structures in the city. It’s just a fun travel post that takes a look at some of the buildings and bridges in San Francisco and shows how they could be construed as phallic symbols if one were interested in looking at them in that way.
Today on the blog there are two other posts that relate to this one. The first is an archive image from San Francisco’s past which shows the erection of the Transamerica Pyramid which is listed in my original post as one of the top seven phallic structures in San Francisco. This historic photo shows what the building looked like as it was going up.
The second post on the blog today isn’t about San Francisco history at all but rather about San Francisco’s architectural future. It’s about the design for the Transbay Station which now likely isn’t going to be built because of design flaws. it would’ve been a new phallic structure in the city if it went up but it looks like it’s staying flaccid.
Tags: architecture, kathryn vercillo, phallic, phallic buildings, San Francisco, san francisco buildings, san francisco is sexy
I am head over heels in love with San Francisco. I am passionate about the city where I live. I have known since before I first came here that this was the place where I was going to make my life and create my world. When I tell people that I have found “the one” and they learn that I am talking about a city, they have one of two reactions.
The first reaction comes from those people who have also had this experience, often from people who also live in San Francisco and feel this same way about the city. They get this knowing look in their eyes and we don’t have to say anything more about it because the understanding is just there. It’s the same as when you find “the one” person that you want to love forever and you tell that to someone else who has had that experience. You both just relate to each other through that common shared human experience.
And then there is the other reaction which comes from those people who have not found the city that resonates for them like San Francisco does for me. It is an amused reaction or a befuddled reaction. It comes along with statements like, “yeah but it’s so expensive in San Francisco” or questions like, “don’t you think you’ll want to try out other cities someday?”
To someone who has truly fallen in love with a place, these reactions just seem ridiculous. Yes, the rent is expensive and there are a dozen other things that aren’t great about San Francisco but don’t you see that I love everything about her despite some flaws? And why would I look for something else when I feel so incredibly absolutely safe and at home here in this city.
Not everyone gets to find “the one” – in romance or in a hometown. But nobody should ever stop looking because if you do find it, your whole life is altered. This happened to me with San Francisco. I got the chance to write about it a bit for a collaborative photo project that I was a part of here recently. The project is called I Live Here: SF and it’s photos of the people who live here and mostly love it here. Check it out to see the cool creative people that live in this city, the collaboration of those people’s words with the photographer’s pictures and the passion that exists when people truly do fall in love with the place where they live.
Tags: cities, creativity, i live here sf, i love sf, kathryn vercillo, love, photography, projects, San Francisco
I spend a lot of time writing about San Francisco. I write all sorts of different stuff about this city but the thing that I write about most is the city’s sexy side. You can learn more about that from my blog San Francisco is Sexy.
Some recent sexy city highlights from the blog include:
I also provided information about how to get discount tickets to performance arts events. This isn’t just for San Francisco but also for other major cities and it’s free to sign up so check that out!
Tags: california, kathryn vercillo, San Francisco, san francisco is sexy, sexy, sexy san francisco, Travel
