Suppenküche, Polk Street and Civic Center

And my day didn't stop after having seen Chinatown. Sean and Philip, two guys I had met at the pool party on saturday, went to have dinner at the Suppenküche with me. Nice place! Authentic and very good German food, and they have German beer sorts of all kinds there! You get Reißdorf Kölsch there, is THAT something? :)

After that, we went to have coffee at a place on Polk Street (where Margaret Cho grew up) and saw the Civic Center area by night. Beautiful!

Here are the pictures I took during the evening.

San Francisco - Chinatown

All I wanted was this computer keyboard with Kanji, Katagana or some Chinese signs on it. Or -- that would've been the best thing -- ALL of these things on every key! Tacky as can be! But -- alas -- I didn't get one. None of the computer stores had them. Out of stock. Great.

BUT

I was able to take some pictures of Chinatown and tried some Dim Sun buns. Odd food, but good. I could do without the occasional bone in the bun though.

Anyway, here are the pictures I took today. :)

Stroll in San Francisco: South of Market Street and ocean beach

Finally I took some time to have a closer look at the area of San Francisco that's called "South of Market" and at the beach. South of Market (also called "Soma") was interesting, but more in a negative way. There is a HUGE amount of homeless people, and you're asked for change on almost every corner. No violence, but the poverty shows clearly.

Having walked from Powell station back to the Castro, I took the MUNI (one of San Francisco's subway systems) to the ocean beach and relaxed there. The weather wasn't exactly good, but the sand was warm, and I loved to feel it between my toes while I was writing diary.

These are the pictures I took today.

Folsom Street Fair 2004

Okay, it finally happened. Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco! I attended it, and this is how it looked to me.

Pool party - Road pictures

Yoohoo, not only was I allowed to take Gene's Z3 to a pool party on saturday that I was SO lucky to be invited to, but I could take a couple of pictures of Divisadero Street in San Francisco and the things I could see from there.

Downtown San Francisco

Last night I went downtown to meet Scott and to take some pictures of the neighborhood. Pretty big and consume-oriented, but just a few streets further you see all sorts of weird people not only begging for money but obviously being totally messed up drug addicts.

Oh, and also see these two pictures of the funky pink bike that we saw on Castro Street and me having fun with it. :)

FINALLY San Francisco!

WOOHOOO! HERE I AM! San Francisco has come my way, and believe me, this city IS beautiful! Gene is such a caring warm-hearted man! Wanna see some pictures?

This morning Jay, Brit, Gene (whose place I'm staying at) had breakfast at "The Cove", as you can see here.

Even before I could stroll around, Gene and I went to a big warehouse called "Costco" to buy junkfood for 800$ to feed volunteers of the Folsom Street Fair with. This is how it looked.

Also I did my first strolls around the gay neighborhood yesterday and today. Shopping, shopping, shopping, while everybody else seems to be cruising, cruising, cruising.

I'll call Jay now to see where we'll have dinner.

More additions from recent Toronto excursions

At the end of the collection of things I've seen you will find some more pictures, including another Germish-weird Mercedes advertisement.
Additionally, you can also check out Lettieri's (coffee store) model of the month, Mr. Andreas Björnson, and John and Larry, two very nice guys I met at the Black Eagle on sunday.

San Francisco is coming up

Today Jay, Brit and I will fly to San Francisco. So expect a load of fresh pictures in the next days. I hope (but think) I will have internet access down there, and I can't wait to see this city!

Breath visible

Ladies and gentlemen,
it looks as if autumn has finally come. When I opened the house door this morning to pick up the newspaper, I could see my breath in the air. Temperatures have apparently fallen, and I'm not sure whether taking my shorts to San Francisco next week actually is a good idea, but nevertheless I will do that. You never know.

Welcome, Mr. Autumn, please step in and give me opportunity to wear all these fabulous clothes that weather has been a lot too warm for until now. :)

Some additions

Being out and walking around today, I took a couple of new pictures of this and that. You can see them at the end of the PLACES section.

Also, yesterday Andi and I met at Timothy's on Queen Street. This is what you might see when you sit in there and watch everybody go by.

Andi, Anja and the flood light blossoms

Yesterday after my CN Tower tour I met Andi at Starbucks on Church Street. We had agreed to meet there, because he is visiting from Germany and wanted to have some ideas what to do in Toronto. So we met and went shopping. What fun and what a great break from my gay overdose from the last weeks! Today we met again and went out for dinner and some drinks with Anja, the friend he's visiting. Pictures of Andi you can see here and here, pictures of our night out are right here.

And that's not all for today. On my way back home, I came by St. John's church and found these beautiful flood light blossoms, LOOK!

Now I can get some sleep, lucky me. :)

CN Tower

Well okay, I HAD to see it: The CN Tower, the tallest building in the world. At least that is what everybody who goes there is told. I remember something about a taller building (being?) built in Taiwan or somewhere around that. But anyway, these are the pictures I took from the platform.

Not always sunny

September has arrived, and it seems like weather is changing big time these days. All of a sudden, wearing shorts is not such a good idea any more most of the time. And it has rained quite often, ever since I arrived here, but these days rain has increased, and additional wind doesn't make it all a lot better. And this is what the gay village looks like when it's raining in the morning. Not a very pleasant sight, is it?

Cirque du Soleil with Paul

On saturday I saw Cirque du Soleil, "Alegría" to be precise, and I was able to see it because Paul asked me if I wanted to come along with his mother and two friends of his. Trusting him and having heard almost nothing about it, I instantly agreed to go with them, and -- believe me -- this was the most amazing show I have seen in a long time. Alegría is so graceful, so beautiful, so colourful, so full of emotions, precision and fantasy that I couldn't stop staring, even forgetting when to applaud.

If you ever get the chance to see it, you MUST NOT SAY NO!

Paul did such a great thing in asking me, it is incredible!

I wasn't allowed to take pictures, but these are the people I went to see it with. And here you have a slight idea of what the stage looked like.

And I've got a new friend. Oink oink.

St. Lawrence Market

Yesterday I strolled around at St. Lawrence Market, a big place to buy groceries, which is downtown, somewhere between Front Street East and King Street East.

Have a look here.

Mike's 40th birthday

Now what do you know? Chris -- whom I had met during Jamboree -- took me to the Mike's 40th birthday party. Mike is the husband of one of Chris' uncountable cousins, Liz, and we had so much fun! Unbelievable! Chris has such a caring family!

have a look here.

Fourth stroll around in Toronto

I figured that with the computeraffen gallery alone, it might be pretty hard to figure out which galleries have recently been updated, so I'll try telling you recent updates here from now on.

A couple of funny things I saw just walking around, so you might like to have a look here.

and the correct version of the "wish: please bring a pet's excrement home"-engrish.com-picture here.

Otherwise, I did my fourth stroll around in Toronto today, and the pictures I considered worth taking (a lot of university buildings this time) are here.

Have fun. :)