San Francisco Dec 9th-11th

I visited San Francisco to attend a conference for work. I attended the same conference a few years ago, but we flew in early the day it started and flew skipped the last session to fly home the next day so I wasn't able to do much of anything.

This time, though, we flew in the night before it started (Dec 8th) and flew out late in the afternoon on the 11th so I had a lot of time to get out.

The morning before the conference started, and Friday after it finished we spent a little bit of time in Chinatown:









Friday, after visiting Chinatown, we decided to hop on the trolly cars and ride down to Fisherman's Warf. We also spent some time in that area Saturday morning before we flew out:





During which, I was fortunate enough to see the crazy bush guy. His gig is hiding behind a bunch of these branches and scaring people as they walk by.



We also visited Pier 39, but I didn't get many photos there because it was very touristy:



The halls in the hotel we stayed in had a very Shining type of feel to them.





Friday night, we started heading back to the hotel after hanging out in Fisherman's Warf, but I decided to wander around the Union Square area for a while instead of turning in so early. I'm so glad I did because I got some cool night shots and hung out watching these street musicians perform for about an hour. After two straight days of staring at graphs and hearing about methodology and sampling error, music and a good time was very much needed.









Some other random views from the city:











Finally here are my favorite shots.



This was down on Fisherman's Warf:


This is near the beach by Fisherman's Warf:



This girl was dancing to the street musicians I was watching in Union Square:



I tried to take a picture of this bird while it was sitting on this post, but it flew away right as I got there and snapped the photo. It became a completely different photo:



Finally, the Bay Bridge in heavy fog from Saturday morning. This was taken from behind the Ferry Building while we were at the Farmer's Market.