Framedlight

Getting up in the 'Aloft' Hotel we had a quick breakfast and then packed our bags, again, and put them into storage. Our flight back to Heathrow was not till 7.45pm and we were only minutes away from the airport. Mairi said she would like to spend our last hours in the US at the Golden Gate Park. We were not best placed for easy travel back into the city, so this entailed a half hour walk along busy main roads until we reached a proper train station. Having travelled back into San Francisco we then caught a bus to the park. The park covers an extensive area and we did not have enough time to do it justice. We walked in past Stow Lake where the gulls and pigeons were abundant. The squirrels were friendly and I saw an American robin, thrush size unlike our small rounder version. Lunch was taken in the Japanese Tea Garden, a beautifully manicured area with all the things you would expect, a willow pattern bridge, raked gravel and carp. ...

We left Alcatraz, arrived back on to the mainland around 2.00pm and walked down to Fisherman's Wharf to eat at a crowded outdoor restaurant. There is a collection of old ships in the Maritime National Park,  just by the Wharf so we went down to have a look. The collection runs from an 1890 steam ferryboat, the Eureka, to an 1886 square-rigger the Balclutha. There is also a 1907 steam tug the Hercules and a paddle tug the Eppleton. When the park closed we made our way back to the train terminus passing the turning area for the cable car. We got back to the Saint Francis Hotel, collected out luggage and got a taxi to the Aloft hotel near the airport (corny name). We would have liked to have stayed a further night in the city but they were fully booked. However there was a small indoor swimming pool at the Aloft, which was not being used by anyone else. So we spent a little time going up and down until we got bored and went t...

A chance exhibition by Ai Weiwei the dissident Chinese artist lead to us being able to visit the sad hospital wing of Alcatraz, which I understand is not normally open to the public. Ai Weiwei had a blog which criticised the Chinese government for trying to cover up the cause of the collapse of school buildings during the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 when nearly 5,500 students perished. Not only did the government suppress the reason for this tragedy, shoddy building methods, it would not disclose the names of the children who had died. Ai Weiwei investigated and published the names so that they would not be forgotten. The blog was closed down by the government and Ai Weiwei was placed under house arrest and in 2011 imprisoned for alleged tax offences. Ai Weiwei had spent the 1980's in the US while studying and working in New York, returning to China when his father became ill. He had participated in courses at the Parson's School of Design and the Art Student's League of N...