Now I mentioned Toronto was fair 1 on my job fair hunt, fair 2 was in San Francisco. Since I had gotten the job in the Toronto fair, I cancel my registration on the fair and I moved to another hotel, closer to Union Square.
Now I have to highly recommend this place, I seriously love it, but I got a bit of a shock when I went to my room the first time. Have to admit room is not really what it was, it was actually a small flat.
Because I switched hotels and did so very quickly and in a few days I didn't properly research the place. I looked at the price, looked at the location, made sure it had room for me on the dates I needed and voila! Made the reservation. In the end I loved the hotel and I thought it was hilarious how blind I was not to be able to find the bed.
But once I was set up, I stock up my fridge and I was ready to go!
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ALCATRAZ
First thing on my list was Alcatraz so I got on a taxi and went to the location. Alcatraz is an amazing place but I feel that what completely wins over people is the audio tour. I have to admit without that, Alcatraz is just a rusty old building.
One of the things the prisoners mentioned about this prison, was that you could see what you were missing when you were on the patio. The view of San Francisco is fantastic, specially on a sunny day it is amazing!
Look how much light comes into the building!
At Alcatraz there was an art exhibition fro Ai Weiwei. Excerpt from the Huffington Post article:
Ai Weiwei, once China's most internationally famous prisoner, is occupying Alcatraz -- or at least his art installations are. Banned from traveling outside his home country, Ai has remotely produced a series of politically potent installations that now occupy the abandoned jail cells, mental wards and industrial buildings of America's most famous island prison.
Combining intricate Chinese kites, delicate porcelain flowers, 1.2 million Lego pieces and haunting audio recordings, the exhibit titled@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz serves as an interactive monument to political prisoners around the globe. Visitors exploring the exhibit's seven parts move from the majestic to the mundane: In one hall they come face to face with an explosively colorful Chinese dragon kite, while in another they can shop through binders full of dissidents and write them postcards.
Some of the pictures I took from the exhibit:
Hard Rock Cafe
As it is my own little tradition, I always go to the Hard Rock Cafe in the city I'm in and try to get their pendants, I may not eat there, but I get a cute and small pendant with the name of the city. I find doing that a bit more fun than getting a magnet of the city or the HRC hoodie. This time I had to do the same and I knew the Hard Rock Cafe was sort of close to where you took the boat to Alcatraz so I use the free wifi in the prison and went to Google Maps and this is what I got!
You gotta love how precise Google maps is! In the end I eventually went to the restauran, had lunch and bought the pendant!
California Academy of Science (Calacademy)
This place was top of my list cause I thought you could feed penguins! Why did I think this? Cause apparently I read the sign wrong! But oh well. Took me about an hour to get there since I got completely lost but eventually made it there.
The Calacademy is a natural history museum like I've never seen. I'm use to the one in London (which I love) but this is highly techie and has a ton of life animals in their habitats. I highly suggest checking it out and being part of all of the interactive presentations, they are well worth it.
DeYoung Museum
This art museum is right across Calacademy. They had a Keith Haring exhibition that I was interested in so that's the only thing I saw, as they were closing when I arrived.
This post has turn out to be rather huge so click here if you want to continue reading :)
