Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants

The last game of my holiday has arrived, and it's the Dodgers against the Giants, with Clayton Kershaw going for the Dodgers, and Johnny Cueto for the Giants.

I had a more central seat today in section 216, and in row B, so only one lot of people in front potentially blocking the view.

This was a pitching duel, although it didn't start too promisingly, with Cueto balking in one run and giving up another on a hit, and Kershaw also giving up a home run to Matt Duffy in the home half of the first.

As the evening wore on, neither side did anything, until San Francisco managed to string some hits together and tie the score at 2.  That was it, until Turner homered for the Dodgers in the top of the 9th inning, and although the Giants got the winning run on base, Crawford struck out to end the game.

You get a wonderful view over the bay as the evening draws in and the lights take effect, particularly when it's not foggy.

After the game, the stands empty to quickly, and the seagulls move in.  It's strange - they've clearly learned how the game goes, because they don't flock over the stadium until the game is over, and then they move in within seconds.

You'd almost think that they understood the game!  Some of the people I spoke to think that they really do recognise the singing of Take Me Out To The Ballgame in the middle of the 7th inning and congregate in readiness, anticipating that the game will over in half an hour or so!

The Dodgers don't have any other pitchers nearly as good as Clayton Kershaw, so the Giants will probably have much better chances to Beat LA over the weekend.  The Dodgers don't return to AT&T Park again until the final weekend of the season, which is a long gap for the rivalry series.

Ocean Beach

For my final day in San Francisco, I took a trip to Ocean Beach.  This is a fairly simple trip from Oakland, as it's a BART trip to San Francisco, and then a Muni Metro to the coast.  I usually use the 'N' train along Judah to the coast, but today I took the SF Zoo train 'L' along Taravel instead.  It turns out it's much quicker than the 'N', just 30 minutes, instead of around 45.

The wind was incredibly strong today.

If you look closely at the top picture, particularly when the van is parked, you can just about see the cloud of sand blowing in.

It was quite painful to walk through from time to time along the top of the cliff, and I had to shield my face with my hat too.


Fortunately, once you got down onto the beach itself, on the sea side of the loose sand, the sandblasting effect disappeared.  It was still very blowy.  You can see how rough the Pacific Ocean was too although the seagulls didn't seem to mind.

I had taken a towel from the hotel to sit on, and so was able to sit on the beach for a while just watching the waves - by the time they got to the beach, they were very gentle, despite the wind.

The tide was coming in, so as soon as it started getting closer, I packed everything up and went back off the beach and sat by the zoo entrance trying to remove all the sand that I'd accumulated.  Then I went back into town, had lunch, and headed off to the game.

The weather did start to clear, although the sun never fully came out until I was on my way back into town for some lunch mid-afternoon time.

Tiburon

I've put quite a lot of photos on this page, so I've used slightly smaller ones that you can click on to see a full-sized image.

Today was a rest day, so I decided to visit Tiburon, which is in the North Bay, across from San Francisco.  The easiest way to get there is by ferry from Pier 41.

There's a marina here too and it's full of expensive-looking yachts.

There's also a lot of very expensive houses looking out over the bay, each one costing over $1.5M according to Jeanne, who I met at the Ferry and Railroad Museum, which is the grey building in the photo.

There used to be an extremely large railroad repair factory, with lots of sidings, in Tiburon.  Jeanne lived in Great Yarmouth and London for many years, working as a teacher, but is now retired back to Tiburon.  Phil (seen in the picture by the door) is one of the people responsible for building a model railway of the yard area, although sadly my picture of that didn't come out.  It has all sorts of details on it, then a few oddities like pink crabs that, if assumed to be to scale, would be bigger than a human adult!

 I chatted to Jeanne for an hour, and we had to stop because it was closing time for the museum at 4pm.

Afterwards, I walked around the main streets of Tiburon for a while until it was time for a ferry back to San Francisco.  It's all well-kept and even has a roundabout!



The return journey was a "commuter" service rather than the "tourist" service.  It was the same price ticket, but it takes you back to the ferry terminal by pier 1 rather than to pier 41. 

Boston Red Sox @ San Francisco Giants (game 2)

The concluding game of this two game series saw San Francisco's ace, Madison Bumgarner, go up against David Price of Boston.

This was even lower scoring that the first game, a pitchers' duel from the off.  Bumgarner got into a lot of deep counts and only lasted 6 innings, which is short for him, and he gave up a solo home run to Young that put Boston in front in the 4th inning.

Meanwhile, Price was very economical with his pitches, and pitched 8 innings, and the Giants only actually got 3 hits in the entire game - but two of them were home runs, giving us a 2-1 victory, and one of them was a "splash hit" by Brandon Belt: it cleared the right field stands and the promenade and landed directly in McCovey Cove as shown in the picture on the left, taken before the game before all the canoeists and other sailors arrived.

The other homer by Williamson just cleared the orange car advertisement in the left field corner and that turned out to be the winning run.

David Ortiz came in to pinch hit again in this game, but he ended up taking a walk and was then pinch run for.  That might be the last time I get to see him play, unless I visit Boston in the autumn or see the Red Sox play again somewhere else.

Importantly, we split the series and got back to winning ways before the Dodgers arrive for a 3-game series starting on Friday evening.  That will be the final game of my holiday.

You can walk all the way around AT&T park without going in, so you can see the marina just outside, in addition to the cove.  It's a very pretty location, with great views across the bay to Oakland.

San Francisco

Today, I spent a lot of time walking and riding around San Francisco.  To get to Fisherman's Wharf, I took a normal bus, as there's no queue and it only takes half an hour, especially when it's not rush hour!

On the way back, I took a cable car.  The posted schedules say that the cable cars leave every 8 minutes.  By my calculations, they were actually leaving every 11 minutes, which is very frustrating, as it usually means waiting three-quarters of an hour when you'd expect it to be less than half an hour.  I managed to get on the next one after the one in this photo, though.  Those people in the background are in the queue that goes all the way around the turntable to the left - they'll be waiting for the 4th of 5th departure before they can get on one.

Boston Red Sox @ San Francisco Giants (game 1)

I spent some time today wandering around the downtown area of San Francisco.  I bought my 7-day visitor passport (cheaper than having a 3-day and a 1-day to cover the 4 days that I'll need it for!) and rode on the cable car.
 
My first two games in San Francisco this year are a short 2-game series with the Boston Red Sox.  We don't play against Boston very often, as they are in the AL East and not our "natural AL rival" (which is Oakland, based on the geography)


This game was tight throughout.  Not very much hitting and not very many runs either, although by the mid-innings, San Francisco had taken a 3-2 lead.  However, with runners on the corners, and 1 out, David Ortiz came up to pinch-hit for Boston and hit a weak ground ball to Joe Panik at 2nd base, but Joe couldn't make the tag on the runner before throwing to first.  If he had, that would have been an inning-ending double play, but as it happened, it meant the tying run scored.  The game went to extra innings, and Boston scored a couple of runs in the 10th inning before Kimbrel came in and closed the game out.

Los Angeles to San Francisco and Oakland

I'd calculated the time I needed to leave the hotel in order to arrive in time at the airport.  I was about right, but it did mean an earlier start than usual, with having to leave by 8.15am!  There was an extremely long queue at security in terminal 7, but the lady marshalling the queue hinted that the games numbered in the 80s had a separate security line hidden away up another level.  That queue was much shorter thankfully and all I had to do was walk down to the gate - which, as is the case traditionally, was right at the far end of the concourse!

I am amazed that there aren't multiple pile-ups every day going around the LAX access road.  So many buses and cars changing lanes with occasional use of indicators.

We did a tour of the taxiways of the airport before taking off, including going around in a circle at one point, and time in the air was just short of an hour.  I saw the salt ponds as we were approaching San Francisco - they are brightly coloured, patterned areas where the saltwater was drained.  Algae make them different colours, and they're so bright.

I had lunch in the airport before heading across to Oakland on BART.  I'm not sure why I was so tired, but I fell asleep just after Balboa Park station and fortunately, woke up again half an hour later just as we were emerging from the tube at West Oakland, which is the stop before mine!

I had already booked dinner for Kincaid's in the evening, to try it again after I visited it last year when it's menu was highly restricted by an impending closure for refurbishment.  It was much better this time, and busier!

These photos are all from Jack London Square, at the south end of Broadway through the middle of Oakland.  This is the area where there are a lot of restaurants, near the harbour.

Los Angeles thoughts and photos

I've just inserted lots of photos into all the previous postings and adjusted some of the text (so you might want to read them again! :-)

I fly to San Francisco tomorrow, concluding my first ever visit to Los Angeles.

In many ways, it's a lot different to what I expected.  One thing that was as expected was the traffic congestion.  Even with the coned off lanes for most of  the route from Union Station to the stadium, it still takes 20-25 minutes with all the jostling to get into the actual stadium car parks on the way there, and longer to get out again as everybody's leaving at the same time.  The traffic from the airport when I arrived last Saturday was heavy too.

The public transport in LA is far more comprehensive than I had believed.  For example, you can get from anywhere on the LA Metro system to the games at Dodger Stadium for $1.75 (each way)  However, the whole of Anaheim seems to revolve around Disneyland.  Almost every route leads there, and all the ART buses terminate there.  Far fewer people go to Angels games on the public transport though, probably due to its infrequency and overcrowdedness.  However, some people seem to come by train to the ARTIC station from down San Diego way even.

When I next visit Los Angeles, I would do the same split between LA and Anaheim again - they are just too far apart to contemplate staying in one of the other (or half-way).  I would certainly visit Anaheim again, and would set aside a day to actually go to Disneyland.  I would probably not stay in a downtown LA hotel like where I am (Courtyard LA @ LA Live) because it is 15 minutes walk from the nearest metro station.  Apart from the number of nearby restaurants, there's no need to be at LA Live at all, and with the metro running so frequently, anywhere that is metro accessible with reasonable travel times to Union Station would do.  I'd visit the beach and perhaps some more of Hollywood, as I only spent a few hours at Universal Studios this time.

Atlanta Braves @ Los Angeles Dodgers (game 3)

 The final game of this series was a day game.   It was another hot and sunny day.  I'd deliberately chosen a seat towards the back, so that I wouldn't be out in the sun through the game.

Unfortunately, it wasn't much of a contest today after the early innings.  Los Angeles put a large number of runs on the board, helped by another couple of home runs by Corey Seager.  The final scoreline was 12-6 but that was only that close due to Atlanta adding on some late consolation runs.

Every single Dodger in the starting line up got a hit, including the pitcher Scott Kazmir who got 2 (for the first time in his career)

Most of the Atlanta players I've never heard of.  Possibly they will grow as a team into something, given time, although with a new stadium to open next year, ideally they need to be working it out by the end of this season.

Here's the view from the top deck, which is where you can enter the stadium and then go down to get to your seating level.  And then a second one with me blocking the view.
 

I had a Dodger Dog this afternoon.  It's just a frankfurter in a roll - not sure what all the fuss is about.

Over the years, I've read lots of disparaging things about Dodger Stadium, but it seems OK to me - better than many, I'd say.  And the transport to the stadium was just fine - it takes a while, but you can get from any Metro station to Union Station for $1.75 and then get the free shuttle to the ballgame.  And they have multiple buses, unlike Anaheim!

Atlanta Braves @ Los Angeles Dodgers (game 2)

I arrived in plenty of time for this game, and I knew how to get to my seat, as it was the same seat as yesterday.  The traffic is really heavy around the stadium, so it's handy that one lane in each direction is coned off for the use by the Dodgers Express bus.

You get some superb views of the downtown cityscape from the stadium, which is very high up.

 Tonight, I saw Clayton Kershaw pitch, and saw him do some rare things: he walked somebody, he singled and scored the winning run, and he committed a balk.

He clearly wasn't happy with the balk call, but Chase Utley came over from 2nd to step in to talk to the umpire about it instead, presumably trying to stop Kershaw getting tossed for arguing it.  Strangely, Dave Roberts didn't come out of the dugout to take over the arguing until Utley had, apparently, sorted it all out. Usually, the managers are right out there to protect their players. I thought that was a little strange.

Even from the seats you get views of the Hollywood hills.


Tonight's Kiss Cam was largely devoted to one man making a marriage proposal - and she said yes!

Universal Studios

Today, I visited Universal Studios.  I'd bought my ticket online, plus the extra for 'Front of Line' access so that I didn't have to queue as much for everything.  I'm not sure that the extra was worth it really, as it's not high season yet.  It would be a lot more valuable during the school summer holiday season probably.

The first exhibit I went to see was the Shrek "4-D" film.  There wasn't actually a queue, so the Front of Line status didn't win me any benefit for that.  The half hour film was quite good, and very funny, and quite jolty at times.


Then I wandered around the new Harry Potter special feature.  I don't do rollercoasters, so there wasn't actually any rides I could go to there, but I did have a good lunch at The Three Broomsticks in the recreation of Hogsmeade.

The snow was glistening very realistically - given that the temperature was in the 90s!

The whole place was dominated by all the shops, selling an awful lot of merchandise, from wands to gowns to quidditch equipment.  There were opportunities for young children who'd just purchased their wand (or had been chosen by their wand) to try magic spells on items in the shop windows, and most of them seemed to manage to get the spells right too and open the locks, levitate a feather etc.

Apart from the two rides, there was a performance area where I watched some mostly a capella performances by 4 members of the Hogwart's choir, with their frogs. 

Next, I went to the Special Effects show, which was half an hour long.  My Front of Line pass got me in first for the best seats, so it was useful here.  The presenters and stunt team covered all sorts of effects, and did some demonstrations.  One family were invited to the stage to redo the foley sound effects for a film clip, then another volunteer had her arm chopped off!  Then the professionals did a large fire stunt, with one of them being set on fire, running around, before being extinguished.  Finally, there was a flying stunt, with one person wearing a 'spacesuit' and being flown around the stage by his girlfriend, who had the tablet controller for the 'extremely expensive' harness and guiding system that made the flying possible.

Finally, I did the Studio Tour.  Again, since it was getting into the late afternoon, I was able to just walk up to this one too.  This was like a 4 carriage road train.  Unfortunately, the man sat me at the front of the second, so it was sometimes hard to hear the commentary due to the engine noise.  The train drove around the studio back lots where all the sound stages are and we saw lots of sets for various films that are still there, plus some for US television programmes that I've never heard of.  The ride includes a few set pieces, one being a Jurassic Park based 3-D film of dinosaurs, which again, was quite jolty and a bit splashy too, not to mention the dinosaur that was spitting at us too!  There was another which was a Fast and the Furious driving mayhem simulation.  It's amazing how they can make it feel like you're really charging along at high speed, or being rolled off a high cliff edge by a dinosaur when you're not actually moving at all.

By the time that tour ended, it was time to head back to the metro, to go along to Union Station to get the shuttle for the Dodgers game.

Atlanta Braves @ Los Angeles Dodgers (game 1)

I found the express bus easily enough.  It's very different to the way it's done in Anaheim!  For a start, there were several buses and a lot of people queueing for them.  The journey looks very short on the map, but it took some time.  At one point, I was considering just walking, but I'm glad I didn't - as what the maps don't show is that it's almost all steep uphill.  With all the congestion, it takes half an hour too.

There's still lots of steps when you get to the stadium.  I managed to enter through the top deck gate and took this photo of the concourse and then of the field.

In the end, I had to go down in the elevator and an escalator to get to the loge level.

It is extremely pleasant to sit there, in comfort, watching a game as a sunny day turns into night, with the temperature 21C/70F.  It's a fabulous view from there, both of the entire field and of the hills in the background.

One of the Dodgers' star pitchers, Maeda was starting tonight, and he gave up runs in the first and second inning, but Atlanta's starter, Julio Teheran, was unable to hold Los Angeles down, giving up solo home runs in the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th innings - three of them to Corey Seager.  The Dodgers' only other hit was a double late on.  Meanwhile Atlanta couldn't muster anything further against a procession of relievers, and the game finished 4-2.

The Dodgers allow people at field level onto the field when there's a fireworks display, so I didn't get to go down there, but had an excellent view from my seat.  The fireworks weren't nearly as impressive as those at Disneyland or the Memorial Day fireworks at Angel Stadium.

The queue for the Dodgers Express back to Union Station snaked half way around the stadium.  With all the congestion, I was queueing for 50 minutes to get back, although I found myself standing next to three people from Cumbria who were on a west coast swing of their own, but not entirely baseball based like mine.  Tom, Matt & Mike started in San Francisco, and were going on to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas.

Santa Monica

Today, I spent most of the day in Santa Monica.

The Expo Metro line has just been extended out there, and by "just", I mean, the new seven station extension from Culver City out to the coast opened less than a fortnight ago, on May 20th, which was fortunate!

It was a sunny day, warming up very quickly.

Except Santa Monica is right on the coast.

It takes nearly an hour to trundle out there to the coast, where it was a big foggy.  It was nice because it meant it wasn't as hot as it was in downtown, where the temperature is up at 28C/86F or thereabouts.

There is a wide sandy beach onto the Pacific Ocean - somewhere in the fog.

There is a fairly long pier, with shops and restaurants and a funfair on it, all the usual sorts of traditional things you find on a pier.

So I had lunch at one of the restaurants, and then looked around some of the shops, walking up and down, before getting on the metro back to the downtown area again.

Even though it's only just opened, the new section of the Expo line was incredibly busy.  It was packed with students, standing room only.


 

I made sure that I left plenty early enough to get back to Union Station to pick up the Dodgers Express bus.  I had seen some posters advertising that former president Bill Clinton was going to be near one of the Metro stations campaigning on behalf of his wife for the upcoming election, and didn't want to get stuck if they closed the line later.

Anaheim to Los Angeles

This was one of the shortest city moves I've ever done on my holiday - only Oakland to San Francisco was shorter!

To get from Anaheim to Los Angeles, I returned to the airport with Supershuttle in the late morning, and from there took the shuttle and then the Green Line metro and Blue Line up to the centre of LA.  It took quite a while to find a working ticket machine, but it all worked well enough once I did find one.

It was much hotter today, and sunny throughout.  It was quite a walk to the hotel from the metro station, but I found it in the end.  LA Live is a huge complex of hotels and venues.  My hotel is 22 storeys high, whilst the Marriott across the street is twice as high, and the Ritz-Carlton next to that probably twice as high again.  My hotel is actually a joint Residence Inn and Courtyard Marriott - the different floors form the different brands, and your electronic room key is required to get the lift to take you to your floor.

In the evening, I just went to dinner in a nearby restaurant in the Marriott, although the lamb was a little disappointing, and then went to bed as I was so tired.

Detroit Tigers @ Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (game 3)

The final game of this three game series was a late afternoon game.  As usual for the west of the country, when games start at 4pm or 5pm, the dreaded shadows come into play.  At least, perhaps the excuse the Angels could try, given that it took until there were 2 outs in the 7th inning before they managed a hit.  They doubled that tally later, and had a couple of walks.

Meanwhile, Detroit amassed double-digit hits ... and double-digit men left on base as they scratched out three 1-run innings to take the game 3-0.  Not even the rally monkey could save the day for the Angels.

I was sitting on the terrace level for this game, which is just under the overhang on the field level, but quite a way back from where I was yesterday.   The view was very good from my section, which was right next to the Diamond Club, but a fraction of the price.  Also, I was right on the end of the row, not at an aisle, so nobody ever wanted to clamber past during the game.  In fact, there were two empty seats to my left too. so there was plenty of space.