My cousin was over in SF for work last week, so on Saturday I brought him around for a trip around the city. I didn't take many pictures, since I've been to those places before, but here are some pictures of the Palace of Fine Arts, which I think I haven't posted before.

It's basically a dome and a lake, although it does have a science museum within it. I don't think my pictures served it justice, it's much prettier in real life.
And here's a picture of my dinner, because I was so amazed by the serving size XD. This was at Lori's Diner, which had really cute interior design, incorporating a lot of retro American memorabilia like jukeboxes and retro arcade games.

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And since it's high time for me to patina and mount my sculptures, here's some photos of them after they came back from the kilns. I took pictures just in case I mess up the patina. I transported the bust by putting it in my luggage bag, lined with scrunched up plastic bags. Happens that it just fits. I was a bit surprised at the bright colour(it started out looking like chocolate), but it grows on you after awhile. The director of the school of sculpture, who helped me fire it, mentioned that it was a nice clay to fire.

And I'm also thinking of using an accidentally decapitated bust from last term as a base to make a new sculpture. Here he is, giving me the evil eye for even thinking that I should re-sculpt him over.
And here he is again, after some clay surgery. Still a work in progress, but I changed the proportions a lot and removed a lot of jowl for a younger character. No reference for this one, just going to have fun.
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More food pics. This one is a black bean burger with rice buns. It turned out pretty good, actually, although I prefer eating it with only 1 bun instead of 2 (up and down) since they are much denser compared to bread. I just noticed that black beans turn an iridescent purple if you soak them overnight, quite fascinating to look at.
Candied red beans.
Ginataan. Actually it's a hybrid with bubur cha cha, because I don't know the difference between them. Ginataan is probably the Filipino version of the same thing. Used vanilla essence instead of pandan leaves.
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In other news, I've more or less finalised my lodgings for the end of this semester onwards. I'll be staying in Ingleside, the same house that I stayed in during winter, since the guy I subrented from is moving out at the right time. The rent is going to be slightly higher than expected, but as a bonus, it's furnished, which I didn't expect. I'm happy with that, since I don't want to waste money buying a bed, and then have to think what to do with it when I shift out. On the downside, it's 45 minutes from uni by train, slightly uphill(tiring to walk up), and laundry there is slightly more expensive. On the upside, it's got fantastic scenery, TV, newspaper, big kitchen and room, and more earthquake and tsunami proof compared to another place that I was considering.

You can tell I'm slightly paranoid when earthquake/tsunami proof or not comes in to play. The other place I considered was Park Merced, only 2 km away from the Winter house, but that's 2km nearer to the shoreline and downhill, and also on the 9th floor of a 50 year old apartment.

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Also, I need a new handphone. My current one's battery is going crazy. Sometimes it insists that it's fully charged, only to run out of power in the middle of my next conversation. I tried looking for a replacement battery online, but couldn't find one, I think it's too outdated. I think I've figured out the system of buying handphones in the US (it's together with your phone plan) so now I just have to decide how basic a phone I want to get. Now my plan only covers talk (no texting or web, cos I'm too stingy, plus I don't use my handphone much. You'd pity my social life if you saw my call logs) so the phone I get will probably also only have talking and texting functions. And alarm clock, I guess. Seriously, phones like that get marketed as senior-citizen-phones. It has big buttons for easy dialing! I'm not kidding.