Otherminds 8 Festival

Best Youth hostel in the city
Best coffee shop in town
Not such a good festival

Quick Tips:

Best breakfast place in SF and the worst late night dinner place in SF.

Best Way To Get Around:

I got around fine with the Muni and Bart, more on that later.

The staff at the hostel recommended this place for coffee and some light breakfast. It is a block away from the hostel so it is very easy find. First of all I am a very picky coffee drinker, and this place had great coffee. The place was tiny [only three tables] but the staff was friendly and really nice, I gave tips generously and cheerfully, because they deserved a good tip.

I had the Lox Bagel one morning and it was one of the best I have ever tasted.

I also had the greatest SF moment here. A beautiful woman walked in after me, and I was admiring her figure from the side, when a man's voice came out of her mouth to order coffee. Heh heh.

In general I am a sucker for latenight fast food. It is a wonder I don't gain more weight. I had also had a very light lunch, a shake at the airport. I didn't really have time for dinner, as I went to a concert which started at 7 pm with a preconcert lecture. By the time the concert was done around 10:30 pm, I was completely famished. I got off the bus after spotting the Mel's Drive-In. A greasy burger and fries sounds like a great way to call it a day.

There was about half a dozen patrons in the place. With all the open seats, only a few were actually clean. After serching for a clean one, I finally set down on the counter and cleaned up the mess myself. After trying to hail down a waiter or waitress, or anyone in the restaurant, it took at least 20 minutes to finally get a menu. Then it took another 20 minutes before I could order.

The burger was actually so bad I could not finish it. The fries must have been fried in oil that was a month old. I never got a refill on my coke. After forking over $10 for my meal, I left Mels' completely disgusted with the American Service Industry.

I have had better experiences at other Mel's Diners before. But this one was absolutley a sorry excuse for a restaurant.

In fact I may become a Vegan after this experience.

Don't eat here.

I am a big sushi eater.

For a sushi place in SF they need to do better than this. Place reeks! It smells so fishy that even though I entered the restaurant hungry, I was not in the mood to eat sushi, my friends would do a double take when I say that.

Go some where else, this town has much better sushi.

Another recommendation, thanks to the youth hostel. I have to tell you the staff really knows their restaurant.

I asked for recommendations by the waitress and everything was fantastic. The bathroom was even clean! That is hard to find in SF, unless you pay big bucks! The Thai Ice tea is not to be missed.

I am usually a budget-conscious person, but I splurge without reservation at least once on a trip, and that is for food.

Skates on the Bay is right on the coast where you face west as the sun is setting and you can see the San Francisco skyline, without it being obtrusive. The sail boats are out in force and you wish you could own a parcel of the west coast. The boardwalk is a bit smelly but the view is spectacular. To the right of the pier is a posh restaurant sitting on stilts above the ocean. Every seat in the place has a westward view so you can see the sunset.

It is pricey, no question about it. But the wine list is respectable and the food is actually good enough you forget how expensive this is going to be.

Great place to take a loved one to finish out the day.

On College Ave, this is a great place to grab a sandwich-type lunch. If you are lucky enough to live here, it is also a great place to get grocery shopping done, although that would get expensive, it sure would be tasty. I had a tuna sanwich, which I still salivate when I think about how good it was. But the what took the cake was the canoli. It was absolutely the best canoli I have ever had in my life so far!

I tend to love technology. So I could not pass up a chance to check out the new Sony Metreon. It is 5 floors of cool stuff. On the first floor is the Discovery store, which I suppose it alright but you can also find it on any mall, so if I were in charge I would put something else there. The food court is a bit more sassy than the usual mall food court but, I wouldn't spend money on food in this complex. If you have a pda, you can download schedule and events from one of the pda stations on the first floor. There is also a Sony store on the first floor. You can check out and try it out, but only the rich or slightly dim folks would by the retail priced stuff here.

Second floor has the game zone which has a medium sized game complex. The selection is not so great. But they have a lot of kmulti player mode games, which is fun if you are here with your friends. I have been the other gameworks type places and this place was so-so in comparison. I expected THE Sony Metreon to have a better quality and quantity of games. there are other Bandai [Japanese anime merchandise store] which would be cool, I suppose, if you are an anime fan.

There was a row of about 6 computers which offered free internet access, except those cheapo bastards at Sony decided to rig them so that it is impossible to complete a short email, before the computer switches back to the default yahoo page. How lame! If it was me in charge I would rig the whole place so that the building has wireless connection so that travelers with laptops could come and access the internet in the building [I would buy food there if that was so].

The third and fourth floor has IMAX theater and regular first run theaters, I did not check them out. The top floor has a nice pagoda to the open air where you can sit outside in the sun and have a drink of coffee. But there are a lot of tikes running around excited and loaded up on sugar. There is a nice "Where the Wild Things Are" exploration center for kids, but overly commercialized. It is too bad the original opera for children is not shown here. That would be something I would bring my kids to see.

In conclusion, Sony needs to replace the manager of this great building which has so many unfulfilled potential.

Once I arrived at SFO, after getting my bags, I went upstairs and turned left. On the island you can catch a shuttle to downtown hotels or hostels. It costs $14 which is a bargain compared to hailing a taxi. The only catch is you have to share the shuttle with usually 5 other people. If you are lucky they are all headed downtown to the same hotel as you, otherwise it is an extra 5-10 minutes for each person. So you do the math. If you are in a hurry catch a cab, if you are frugal like me, take the Shuttle. I hear in 2004 the Bart line will come all the way to SFO. I will believe it when I see it.