Thirteen Things I Still Need to do in California

This is a companion to the last post.

Where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars...

Those of you who know me in real life may remember that time I tried a project called 'The Bay Area Bucket List', meant to be a blog detailing my efforts to visit all the cool places in the Bay Area before leaving it, possibly forever if I may be overly dramatic for a second. It failed for a few reasons. Not least of which being that I just don't like Wordpress that much. (I know a lot of bloggers prefer it but there's a reason I moved back to this blogging platform, which suits my needs much better!) Other reasons included lack of money, lack of free time, and the fact that writing the same type of entry over and over is exhausting and not particularly rewarding.

But that doesn't me that the 'bucket list' itself doesn't still exist. I still have the list of all the things I had hoped to do, and I've picked out the 13 I want to do most. (Though the last two, being so far away, will probably not be done before I leave. Oh well. I can dream.)

Just like the last list, there's no particular order to this list. Just like the last list, these are all stock photos or labeled for noncommercial reuse.


1. Orchestria Palm Court

I've wanted to eat at this restaurant pretty much ever since I first heard about it, but it's only open on weekends, when I work, so it's been hard to even find time to do so! Still, I won't give up - I really wanna eat here! Basically, some engineer with a collection of turn-of-the-century self-playing pianos ran out of room to store them, so instead of selling them he bought a historic building to house them and decided to open it up as a Victorian/Edwardian themed restaurant that serves organic/free-range food that would satisfy even the most devoted pretentious hipster Whole Foods shopper. Doesn't it sound so delightfully odd? Who wouldn't want to eat here just to experience it?

2. Filoli

I may have a thing for large houses built by rich eccentrics. Filoli - which apparently stands for "Fight for a just cause; Love your fellow man; Live a good life." - was the country house for the wealthy Bourn family and is now a house museum with gorgeous gardens. It's also apparently famous for being used in the opening credits of the 80s TV Show "Dynasty" for whatever that's worth. Me, I just really like beautiful historic places. My mother wants to go here as well so she's probably going to take me.

3. Drawbridge

I'm super into Urban Exploration - exploring abandoned structures - but it's hard to find places that are legal to explore around the Bay Area. I mean I guess technically Sutro Baths count but it's not really the same? As far as I know, though, it's perfectly legal to hike up to Drawbridge and poke around as long as one stays on the trails and doesn't actually go inside the decaying buildings, for safety reasons. One of my friends from work and I are hopefully going to go together sometime.

4. Haas-Lilienthal House

How have I not been inside this building yet? I've driven past it multiple times, and seen videos of the beauty of its Victorian interior, but I've never actually been inside, especially since their open hours are so scarce. Still, it's been on my list of places to visit for years now, and I dearly hope I get the chance. I love Victorian architecture (I mean, duh, look where I work) so hopefully...

5. San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers

I actually almost went here recently, on my San Francisco trip, but we ran out of time. This conservatory is the oldest in the United States, with a huge collection of rare and exotic plants. The historic building is beautiful enough - look at it, it looks like something out of Wonderland (literally, check out the background of this illustration) - but those plants are the real draw. I'm most interested in their collection of carnivorous plants and their tropical plant galleries.

6. Kittea

 
I know New York probably has their own Cat Café, but San Francisco's Kittea was the first one I heard about in America, and I haven't given up on my desire to go and drink tea among the kitties. For those who don't know, a cat cafe is literally exactly what it sounds like: a place where people who live in no-pets-allowed apartment buildings can meet with friends for tea or coffee that happens to have a number of in-store cats to play with. They started in Japan, which also now has bunny cafes, bird cafes, and even a hedgehog cafe (that I would LOVE to visit, I love hedgehogs). Only the cat ones have caught on globally. I'm a major cat person so it sounds like paradise.

7. Moss Beach Distillery

This distillery is a California historical landmark, a former 1920s speakeasy, and 'famously haunted' by a murder victim known as 'The Blue Lady'. Those are the reasons my history-buff ghost-loving 20s-obsessed gay ass wants to go here. It's also apparently a really good seafood restaurant, so I think based on that alone I can convince my parents to take me, since they love seafood. I don't eat seafood, but I'll just get some fried artichoke hearts and look for that ghost tbh.

8. Woodside Store

It doesn't look like much, does it? You're probably wondering why I'm listing a rural store among all these restaurants and historic spots. Well, this isn't actually a store in the sense you're thinking. It's a museum. It was a store in the 1800s, and it's actually been preserved as a way to look back in time to what Californians of that era were buying. And it's not too far from Filoli so I hope to visit them in the same day.

9. Chinese Cultural Garden

This garden isn't even that far from my house so I have no idea why I haven't gone to visit it yet. I love Asian-style formal gardens, and all the other ones I know of around here (the Friendship Garden, Hakone, etc) are Japanese. I'd like to see how a Chinese one differs. A bonus is that this one was actually mostly built by a Chinese immigrant. Immigrants really do get the job done.

10. Straw

It turns out San Francisco has a carnival-themed restaurant because of course it does. The food here is probably so bad for you but I don't care. Straw serves such delights as donut burgers, sweet potato tots with blackberry bbq sauce, fried pickles, and funnel cake. You can even eat in a repurposed Tilt-A-Whirl car! Will I get major heartburn? Probably. Am I totally going to enjoy the hell out of this place if I ever get to it anyway? Definitely.

11. Teske's Germania

San Jose doesn't have a lot of German restaurants but there is at least this one. I'd want to go on a night with German folk musicians to get the full experience. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to wait for Oktoberfest, but it's still worth going. German fare is pretty heavy and meaty so there probably isn't much I can eat, but the one vegetarian entree I did see on the menu (a spätzle) looks pretty good, plus they have potato pancakes! Anyway, I'd be going more for the experience than for the food.

12. Solvang

Solvang is a town in Southern California that I have been to once, but we only stopped there to grab a quick lunch on our way down to Pasadena so I didn't really get to explore as much as I like. It looks cheesy/kitsch as hell, and I am into that. It's a Danish-style town... about as accurate as the stops in Disney's Epcot. But the architecture is charming in its own way, there are two museums there I'd like to visit (a Danish cultural one and one devoted to Hans Christian Andersen, the man who wrote my favourite fairy tale, 'The Snow Queen'), I bet the souvenir shops sell the cheesiest things, and eating Danish food would make me kind of feel like a modern-day Viking lass. It just seems like it would be fun.

13. Hearst Castle 

 
Hearst Castle is another one I've actually already been to, except I was like ten at the time and I don't remember anything about it. Which is a shame because every photo I've seen of it looks gorgeous. I wish I remembered experiencing it in person, so the only solution is to experience it in person again, even if it is like a four-hour drive from my house. Another mansion custom-built for a wealthy eccentric, this one actually makes for a fascinating foil to my work, since social butterfly Hearst built this as a party home while reclusive Mrs. Winchester built her mansion only for herself. I want to see the beautiful Roman style pools, the Gothic study, the beautiful gardens, and the one bedroom I actually do have vague memories of. (it was in like a Spanish Moorish style? I found this photo of it. Doesn't it look like something out of a fairy tale?) And this time, I want to take pictures so I don't forget it again! (Assuming they're allowed; I don't know if they are.)

I don't know if I'll actually get to all of this, but again, I can dream.
-Nym-