Winter break posts: Exploring Golden Gate park

A lot of my international friends have left me after this semester. Simone, my good friend from Germany, left a week or so ago. So I hung out with her on her last day before she left to go tour more of America. She's coming back in February though so I wasnt that sad when she left. Instead of just going to hippie hill, which is at the very tip of the park, we decided to go through the whole park. By foot. Simone thought it would be amazing to go see the bisons (why the hell would they have bisons in the middle of a park I have no freakin clue). First, we visited hippie hill, and (of course, when you bring someone to check something out, expecting there to be some certain thing...it never happens as you want it to) there was no drum circle. None. Barely any hobos, and no drum circles. It was the weirdest thing. It must be at least the third time I've been to hippie hill, and each time beforehand, there had been drum circles. We brushed that under the carpet and pretended that never happened, and then we walked towards Stow Lake- the one that's rumoured to be haunted by a dead mother and her drowned baby- but it wasn't scary because it was day time. Some parts of Golden Gate park were gorgeous. At one point, we walked along this quaint, running stream of water and I felt like I was in New Zealand for a bit. It was just a nice, tranquil break from the crazy that is San Francisco. 

 At about 1/3 of the way there, we passed by the De Young museum and the California Academy of Science- both of which I still haven't visited. We didn't have enough time to actually go in, but the exterior of both of the buildings were nice. They also had a romantic park in the middle with bare-branched trees that looked like they belonged in fall.

 After that, we walked a short distance to the japanese tea gardens. I haven't even been to the japanese gardens at Sydney- which made me wonder whether I'm just bias, and whether Sydney actually has lots of nook-and-cranny secret spots that I just haven't appreciated because I've been there all my life. Maybe? I guess I'll just have to wait and go home and see. Even though I don't want to leave.

At around half way, we finally reached Stow Lake. We got tired so we sat on a bench near the lake and looked at ducks and had a nice chat.
Also when we started walking again, we saw a really twisted tree. I wanted to take it homeeeeeee.

When we got back on track, we walked for another half an hour or so, and made it to the bisons before the sun set. I realised I took absolutely no photos to show you guys, because to be very honest, they were super, super boring. I went right up to the fence down the hill to see if I could attract a bison nearer but all my commotion only brought me a head-tilt towards my general direction and no actual leg movement in any of the bisons. They just had a good time eating grass... so boring. They may as well have had cows in a giant paddock. It would have made no difference. (Oh wait, here's ONE photo)  

 By then, it was already dark. And we had to walk through the rest of the foresty park in the dark. It was equal parts scary and exciting. We were starving by the time we got out of the park, so we went to Irving and I took Simone to try some pho (trust). I think she liked it, besides the fact that its such a hassle to eat because, chopsticks. Now I want pho, shit.

All in all, it was a really relaxing day. Sometimes you don't need to do much to be happy as long as you have good company.