SF'09 - The Rest of Friday and Part of Saturday

Ok, I'm finally back with the 2nd part of the recounting of San Fran. The picture below was the view from our hotel room. I know the lines in the window are sexy! Yeah, we ended up in a corner room that had a view of Union Square. We totally lucked out! Across the street is Macy's, we were above Neiman Marcus and next to Tiffany & Co. Noelle said it best, "I'm home!" I sent the pic to my parents from my phone and said we could see Macy's. My dad wrote back and asked, "Who's macy?" I told him it was a store, you know, like the kind you go shopping in? He wrote back and said not to go there. It made me laugh.Noelle and I hung around our hotel and waited for Maddie to arrive because she decided to come up to hang with us that night. We all got ready to go out and headed straight for Macy's, naturally. On the way there, Noelle rolled her ankle and ate shit in the middle of Union Square. She's smooth like that. After shopping we headed to Steps of Rome for dinner. It's the great place we ate at twice the last time we were there. Dinner was really good, but our servers weren't there... it was a different group of guys... oh well.

The restaurant is right around the corner from Sex Row. I don't know what it's called, but that seems like a good name for the area. Basically the whole street is full of Gentlemen's Clubs (strip clubs), Sex Stores, and all other sorts of nastiness. Oh, and liquor stores. The above picture is the sign for one of the strip clubs... it's called Garden of Eden... hot, huh? Anyway, we went to the same liquor store we went to last time and Jafar was there... he remembered us. We were flattered. Apparenly the owner of the store is a Salti. I've never known a Salti I wasn't related to, so it was kind of funny. Not that you care... Anyway, we went back to the hotel, then headed to the Cheesecake Factory b/c Maddie was craving cheesecake.

The next morning we met the whole group across the street at Sears' Cafe. Jen and Joe got in the night before; Rose and Michelle got in that morning. Breakfast was good, table was cramped, hostess was bitchy. From there we headed to Golden Gate Park to see the Japanese Tea Gardens. Noelle and I got there first so we went in and waited for the rest of the group. The place is absolutely gorgeous. If you have a chance to see it, do. It's fab.

The next bunch of pictures are from the gardens. They kind of give a feel for a couple different areas.

Noelle thought she'd try to channel Buddah.

Here's the crew

This was some weird, cracked-out deer or something. Not really sure, but it creeped us out!

Oh yeah, by the way... Joe proposed to Jen while we were at the gardens. He pulled her aside while the rest of us headed to the gift shop. Noelle and I got curious so we spied through the bamboo. Sure enough, he got down on one knee and everything! Good thing I have a camera with 12x zoom! The above pic was him putting the ring on her finger... cute, huh?! I think I'm going to become a paparazzo!

I don't know why, but I thought this sign was cute.

I really want to give you more, but I'm really tired and need to head to bed. Hope you enjoyed the pics. I'll be back tomorrow with at least the next two installments... I promise!