Had a tour around the Mission district today, which is the Spanish area. It's well known for graffiti all over the neighbourhood, but especially is Clarion alley.

Another landmark in the area is the Mission Dolores basilica, also the oldest building in the neighbourhood.

It's an adobe style building with clay walls and wooden rafters. The rafters here are painted with vegetable pigments and lashed with rawhide. This is the chapel part.

And this is the basilica part.

Really nice contrast of red stained glass and blue painted interiors.


The museum holds some religious relics and Native American items. One of the things I found interesting is the traditional version of dice, which is to throw a bunch of sticks decorated on one side or walnut shells on the ground and count the number of sticks/shells lying on their backs.
There is a small graveyard which holds some notable residents of the area from the Gold Rush period.
A small Native American hut for display in the graveyard. It has good insulation.




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Next, I went window shopping along Valencia Street, which turns out to have lots of interesting shops. So here's a list where you can see what they sell, from their website. Very tempted to take pictures of their shops, but they wouldn't appreciate that. I have some favourites from the hippie Haight-Ashbury stretch as well.

Lists of interesting shops around San Francisco:

Paxton Gate - horticulture, taxidermy and art. Exotic plants in glass balls, Taxidermy unicorns and flying monkeys. Mission district.

826 Valencia - pirate gear. Without a display window and almost without a name, quite easy to walk pass. But fun to shop in, with witty pirate ship rules framed up around the shop and selling things like pirate hooks, iron locks and pickled leeches for your every ailment. Apparently born from a writing workshop. Mission district.

Loved to Death - taxidermy and memento mori. Taxidermy mice playing cards, Victorian photographs, gilded bird skulls as necklaces. Haight-Ashbury.

Kidrobot- graphic tees and collectible toys. Cute shirts, figurines and pop culture miniatures sold in blind boxes. Haight-Ashbury.

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More new foods to try. I dunno what to make with them yet, but I'll find out. Fennel, chard, celery root and parsnips.