Go Giants and flying kites

       So I'm a bit late again with this post, oops... But school's now in full swing, so it's getting harder to find the time to write. Anyway, here are the photos of the Giants vs San Diego baseball game I went to see with my friends Carlos, Rosie and James. We were particularly grateful for James coming along, as he was the only american person in our group and helped explained all the rules, so we could actually follow the game and understand what was going on. Turns out the rules of baseball are quite easy to follow, cos it all works in threes: 3 batters, 3 pitchers, etc... James and I actually think baseball might have been invented as a conspiracy by christians wanting to commemorate the holy trinity. 

      Baseball fans are nothing like the fans we're used to at football or rugby. First of all, arriving at the game on time is totally optional. People don't seem to mind too much if they mind the first half hour of the game or even more. And sitting throughout the game is totally optional too, so if people get bored or something, they just go for a wonder and come back later! Finally, if the game goes into extra time, people don't feel the need to stay till the end of the game either... This game went into the 12th inning and by then, half the stadium had left! Who buys tickets for a game and then doesn't even stay till the end?

A budweiser and a hot dog, the two staples of a good baseball game.

Budweiser special edition aluminium bottle

I bet you've never seen a hot dog looking like this in the UK, it nearly looks healthy!

      Between each inning, we got to see all the cheesy bits on the big screen, like couples sharing a kiss, people singing karaoke and people doing crazy dancing or fist pumping, just like on TV. Now that I think is definitely missing from sports back home.

   I also found out that baseball is a dangerous game with all the stray ball flying off into the public. If you don't keep an eye on play at all times, you risk getting hurt. One guy actually took a ball right in the face and with balls travelling at between 70 and 90 miles an hour, that must have hurt!

These people in the water are complete nutters, they spent the whole game on their boats, canoes or even swimming around holding on to surf boards, just in the 1 in a million chance that a batter would hit a home-run ball right out of the stadium and into the water. I have no idea how the people in the water manged to stay all game, it was cold enough out of the water, let alone in it!

    I forgot to mention, the Giants won, it was a great game, with loads of suspense, right till the end. I'm definitely converted, I'm now a Giants fan!

     The following Sunday, I went to a Kite Festival in Marina Green, near Fort Mason. San Francisco definitely seems to be big on Kites and this is the greatest number of kites I've ever seen all flying together! It was absolutely amazing! Most kites were flown by families, come for the day, but there were also some professional kite-makers who made and flew some of the bigger ones. They were giving out prizes for the best, prettiest, most original, etc... I was just in awe of all the variety of sizes and shapes. My favourite one was the dragon at the end.

Chinatown, Shakespeare and pyramids all in one day...

    So last week-end was another great week-end of adventures... It started off with a little trip to Chinatown for the Autumn Moon Festival celebrations. The whole streets were packed, it was a really great atmosphere! My favourite thing about the festival though was that a lot of the stalls were advertising in Chinese and offered no english translation, so you got a real feeling that this was a festival for the locals and not for tourists.

They had loads of stalls selling all these beautiful orchids.

They were also selling these great carnivorous pitcher plants. Would have loved to buy one of those!

These girls were just the cutest and they were concentrating so hard on playing their instruments. 

They were really good musicians too.

This girl is dressed in her school's traditional uniform. Nice, hey?

A street performer balancing a crystal ball....

The fallen dragons after the parade

This band was playing traditional music, it was really beautiful and their instruments were so unusual...

This was a great contortionist's show.

Meet Chinatown's Elvis... He was so hilarious and my favourite Elvis impersonator to date!

And the local dance school show

Weird and wonderful fruit on sale on the street.

People testing massage chairs on the street.

Just down the road from Chinatown, I found Larry Flynt's Hustler Club... :-)

And just round the corner is my favourite building in San Francisco, the Transamerica Pyramid Building. 

And for the cherry on the cake, my friend Rosie and I got to treat ourselves to a little Shakespeare in the Park that evening. This is part of a yearly event where the Presidio Park puts on one of Shakespeare's plays every week-end for free throughout September. This year, the play was Cymbelline, I'd never seen it before so it was a real treat.

Rosie in her brand new panda hat :-)

I was really impressed by the costumes and the set. The costumes had a very cool steam punk style and the set was simple but very effective. It was hilarious to hear Shakespeare with an american accent and of of course, with this being an american production, they just couldn't help themselves and to make it into a musical with random bits of singing in between acts! The funniest bit though came when in one of the scenes, the villain has introduced himself into the young princess' bedroom while she sleeps and take a look at her naked body... Just as the guy was about to lift up her nightgown, a women from the audience shouted "Hey!"