March 28, 2022

Today was museum day as the weather forecast was for rain and, although the day dawned bright and dry, we stuck to the plan as they are closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. San Francisco has many great museums but we decided to visit the Asian Art Museum and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) both of which are world class in their specialties.

The Asian Art Museum has all forms of art from the region and is huge so we decided to focus on two galleries. One thing that the region is well known for are the intricate, bright fabrics that are used for everyday wear as well as ceremonial purposes and there was a small exhibition on the techniques and materials used to weave these over the centuries – mainly focused on Indonesia. We spent longer, however, at the magnificent collection of South Asian art, mainly sculptures of Hindu Gods, which have been so finely crafted over the centuries.

The Hindu deity Durga killing the buffalo demon (Circa 1000) was displayed in this impressive location.

After lunch at the Asian Museum cafe we moved on to SFMOMA but, since we had little time before we were invited to cocktails at a friend of Kusum and Uday, we only viewed two galleries, one where sustainable architecture was the inspiration for the art and the other having some large installations. Some of the pieces in the first gallery were fascinating and brought out  the sustainability theme immediately but I found it hard to understand the connection in others.

This piece, in the second gallery, captured everyone’s attention as the moving wires created a changing soap-film sculpture that was mesmerizing.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at Susanna’s, a friend of Kusum and Uday, who has already had two books published on psychology but is now retired and working on her third – this one about cocktails. Since starting to invent and make cocktails just a few years ago Susanna has had two of her recipes published in Difford’s Guide to Cocktails – considered the encyclopedia of the topic. Not only did she make us all exquisite cocktails – mine was, of course, a beer cocktail – but she lives in an apartment with views in almost every direction.

Some of our cocktails sit on the table overlooking San Francisco Bay.

The view from her fire escape is of the financial district.

The light was beautiful and kept changing during our time there.

To round off the day we went to a great restaurant called Pacific Catch to enjoy creative seafood dishes on a heated patio. Perfect.

March 29, 2022

We have been so lucky with the weather, particularly the lack of fog, since we arrived and today was no exception. Kusum and Uday picked us up in the morning for a walk along Lands End Trail. This is at the western end of Golden Gate Park, next to the bay and not only has stunning views of the bay and Golden Gate Bridge but is a beautiful setting that would make you want to walk the trail even without the views. There are also memorials, information boards about the bay’s history, the geology and nature of the area as well as historical sites to visit along the trail.

The bay and Golden Gate Bridge from one of the many overlooks.

After walking for a while we had lunch at an oceanfront restaurant near the trail head and then spent a while walking elsewhere in Golden Gate Park. The park is huge and has something for everyone, trails, museums, lakes and boat rentals, playgrounds, Japanese and botanical gardens, woodlands and even windmills.

Three turtles relaxing on a plank of wood in one of the lakes absorb the afternoon sunshine.

In the evening we went to The Embarcadero downtown to eat at a restaurant that has a terrace with a grand view of the area’s other amazing bridge The San Francisco-Oakland  Bay Bridge. This carries over a quarter of a million vehicles per day across the bay between San Francisco and Oakland. At night the cables of the western half of the bridge are illuminated and display moving patterns.