Living Roofs and Tall Towers

Sunday was spent exclusively within the city and outlying areas, which was a good change from the long hike of the previous day. The McKenzies were nice enough to let Sean and I explore the new California Academy of Sciences building at the member preview, which happened a week before the official public opening. The Academy, located in Golden Gate Park, is mostly a museum but also houses the various professors and scientists linked with the institution in two or three basement floors. The new $500m building is extraordinary: fully sustainable, a living roof, nice open spaces, and a "dome" that houses specific exhibits (currently the rainforest exhibit). Here's a view of the living roof:

And a view of the De Young Museum from the top of the Academy where I later attended a Chihuly exhibit:

From here, Sean and I took a quick jaunt down into the Haight-Ashbury area and stopped by a couple cool stores, including this very cool record store called Amoeba (Haight and Stanyan). Grabbed lunch at a dim sum place on Geary in Richmond, and Sean and I set out for Berkeley via BART, which is the Bay Area Rapid Transit, an underground network that gets you around the city and to the East Bay area (Oakland, Berkeley, etc.). We ended up walking around quite a bit, stopping to grab a iced coffee and read the newspaper (Sean had missed his requisite coffee for the morning), and again to get Sean some vegan lunch (which actually looked quite tasty). After walking around on the campus for a bit, we stopped at the Sather Tower, where we had a magnificent view from the top of the surrounding areas, a bit too hazy to see SF itself.

Sean and I finished up the day with his parents at what I think was the Lark Creek Inn in Larkspur, dinner courtesy of Sean himself!