Poverty, Steep Streets, China Town and Batman

Tuesday, Day three in San Francisco.
After a swim and quick gym session this mourning I snuck into a workshop early but there were no empty workshops worth going to in the afternoon so I went for another stroll. I struck out south-west, more or less the direction that I can see from my room. Pretty quickly the scene turned nasty, lots of very poor, mostly black sick people lying on the pavement, yelling, drunk or high. Those with legs walked with crutches and anybody who could keep up with me had a sorry tail to tell. After three blocks I took a right, turning more or less north- striking towards a restaurant that was suggested before I left Sydney- Asia de Cuba. I’ve looked it up on Google earth and kind of knew where to aim for however the building was a construction sight and the lass out the front with a clip board and entourage of body builder types didn’t have the time to answer my questions. Plenty of time to stand there and do nothing tho’. So I continued up the hill, and in a rounda abouts way found myself circumambulating china town. Then I orbited back around the hotel and up to a largish food hall where I attempted to have lunch. Now I don’t think that I have a particularly broad Australian accent but the Latino serving wench had no idea what I was saying no-mater which way I tried to say it. Falling back on spanglish she understood me, kind of a taxi-lingua I guess. “Yo querio el numero uno, ci, the beef sandwich, con carne sin mayonnaise, ci, gracious ”. I have heard much much more Spanish on the streets than I have English, the same for the airport, taxi, hotel staff and any place that I purchase food. TV is half in spanglish or Spanish and even bus adverts are in Spanish (click on the image to zoom in)!
After the stroll I headed back to the hotel and took some photos from the sky lounge and then did the meet and greet in the conference drinks. I managed to catch up with all the providers that I had agreed to meet with before I left Sydney so that was good. Then up to drinks in the very batman like lounge before coming back down to write up this blog and then head to bed for a 6:30 gym session.
More tomorrow

Steve