The Manrilla Blog | Life. Art. Religion. Culture.

Well, having just returned from my first solo outing I can say this about San Francisco so far: It’s a rough-ass city to walk in! Man, these hills out here are killer. If you’re looking for a place to get in shape and loose a few pounds, just spend a day or two walking around here. Man, I really got in a good work out. I walked down to the Embarcadero today and watched some construction. I had a quick bite and then moved on, walking back up through Chinatown. There’s just so much activity here. People are everywhere and are doing everything. Again, I could not help but to notice a large number of homeless here as well.

Chinatown seems like a place where I could spend a lot of time photographing. All of the shop signs are in Chinese as well as it is spoken on the street. This brings me to a quick side point. I think I have heard almost every language spoken by man here. Czech. Spanish. Japanese. Italian. Chinese. French. Arabic , as well as several others that I can only guess the origins. The interesting part is that it’s not spoken hastily, with embarrassment as it is back in Wisconsin. No, here, the immigrant or non-English speaking people converse openly, perhaps with unconscious pride, in their native tongues, not giving a damn if the people around them understand or not. It sounds so good, I’m almost tempted to just jump right in to conversations that I have no part in. Almost.

In the afternoon, after Rebeca’s seminar, we met up with my other cousins, Karen, her husband Max, and Kelley. It was so good to see them both. I hadn’t seen Karen, especially, in a long time. They both looked good. Karen’s husband, Max, is one cool man. He’s really nice, laid back and is easy to get along with.

We headed out to find some food and made our way over to the Mission District. Here’s a part of San Francisco I’d like to live in. I’d say it probably has the city’s largest concentration of Latinos but if one goes north on 24th above Mission Street then you’ll see where all of the yuppies have moved in, driving up rent. The ‘brown people’ are on the lower half of 24th. Lot’s of cool shops and stores and tons of bars, restaurants and especially, taquerias. We ate at a place featuring food from El Salvador. The food was good but heavy. We were all ready to fall asleep after we received the bill. Max is a native from the area here, in the Mission District itself. He took us for a quick tour back through town down along Market Street, passing a U. S. Mint. Another great evening spent here. I will take Max’s advice and head up to Bush & Grant to look for a small vegetable market in Chinatown tomorrow to photograph.