San Fran

What a great mini-vacation I had today!

One of my co-workers has to fly to China tomorrow to work on one of our huge digital video globes that will be at the Olympics. So I volunteered to go to San Fran today to get his visa processed at the Chinese Consulate.

I dropped the paperwork off at 10:30 am and then had 4 hours until I could pick it up at 2:30 pm. Hmmm... time to explore!

The Consulate was only a block away from Japantown and I had never been there. So I went over and toured around for a half hour or so.

This was one of the pretty fountains in the courtyard. That is the Peace Pagoda in the background.

Then I decided to head over to Golden Gate Park. My first stop was the de Young Art Museum, which I hadn't seen since it was rebuilt in 2005 (the old museum was damaged in the 1989 earthquake). There is a 9 story tower on one end with an observation room at the top. Here's a picture looking down at the gardens.

They had a special exhibition by Dale Chihuly. I love his gorgeous glass! Here is one of his pieces. Sorry my camera doesn't do it justice. This is about 2' wide.
After a lovely lunch at the de Young cafe, I took a walk in that corner of the park. Here is a foggy view of Stow Lake.
Wandering back to the de Young, I found the Rose Garden.
It was the perfect antidote to the mid-summer-I'm-sitting-in-an-office-all-day blues!