San Francisco, Part II

The third day here, it was Friday - guess what? Friday pray. Just near my hotel, along the O'Farrell street, there were lot of halal restaurants and groceries ran by Yemeni origin Americans. One of the shopkeeper (perhaps the owner) reminded me it was Friday. So where's the mosque? It was still early in the morning, so I just walk around the area like a senator/YB visiting his territory. Street by street, park by park and district by district. This place reminded me Manchester, perhaps the building design and the intensity of it people. However, sorry to say - many 'homeless' here. In that morning, I wonder why there was a very, very long queue. I found out they queue for food distributed by a nearby church. The policemen were everywhere too - observing those guys. Safety precaution? I walked in the policemen 'visible zone' and sometimes had short conversation with the policeman. Or just say "Hi". Then I found the mosque - coincidentally I met the imam but it wasn't time to pray yet. Now what? Having breakfast + lunch at an Indian muslim restaurant by the Ellis St.

Mosque: near Golden gate avenue

Left: Union park, Right: It is not Golden gate but a bridge to Berkeley (the location for Uni. of California, Berkeley)

San Francisco, Part I

Four of my siblings were in this country for a long stay either for study or work - which I had dreamt to be there since I was 6 or 7 years old. I was so excited when I received the flight ticket to United States of America and the 'long rally' journey did not tiring me all the way. Prior to the visit, I heard so many stories and rumours about US (mostly were not good to listen), but I didn't bother about it at all. For me, I only accept advice and precaution warning but not to rumours. Just like when I was in Turkey during the protest against Gezi Park development. Though it was not good around Taksim and Gezi Park, Istanbul is not situated in Gezi Park indeed! Sultanahmet was safe, Eminonu was safe, Karakoy was safe, and I saw only smiling face in the city - so what's up? OK, back to my US visit. It was San Francisco, a big metropolitan city in the state of California. What do you want to know? 8% tax? Nevada has cheaper tax. Hehe. What tax? never mind if you don't know. When I arrived in San Fran, all got well, I could find my hotel easily, the sky was clear and I had 'warm up' walked around the business district which was in walking distance from my hotel. My previous British ascend was automatically changed to American mode ascend, i.e: from wa'er to wattrer, bues to bas, centre to cen'er etc. (dasar melayu suke sangat ikut loghat orang lain bile berkomunikasi). I did not realized one of the major threat to US - the weather. Things changed when I started for my next day - fog! Fog surrounded the whole city! No wonder they call this city as "Fog City". Ok, I would not going to cry for that. Allah had determined it for me so I accepted it.