The swelling has gone down - just in time to do Wild Wes's Walking tour which started with Wes singing a song whilst strumming a ukulele! This is definitely my kinda tour.

According to Wes, there were two defining moments which put San Francisco "on the map": the gold rush in 1848 - which expanded the population from 400 to 25000 in 1 year - and then the devastating earthquake and subsequent fire in 1906. We were then led to the St Francis Hotel (now part of the Westin chain) which Charles Crocker built. This was one of the few buildings in which the structure of the building remained but everything else was destroyed by the fire. A dog survived in the basement and became the official mascot - Francis! In 1975, President Ford was exiting from the hotel and an assassination was attempted by a radical FBI informant.

Next, we crossed over to the landmark Union Square, which was originally a huge sand dune. The first mayor, John Geary, built the Union Square to support the union in the Civil War. The Dewey Memorial was one of the only things that remained after the fire. There's an interesting story regarding the Dewey Monument which has a figure of a woman on the top of the column. Allegedly, a contest was held to choose a model for the sculpture - kinda like a 19th Century version of America's Top Model. Well, anyway, one of the judges, a wealthy, elderly sugar tycoon by the name of Adolf Spreckles, fell in love with the young model Alma Debrettaville and cast the deciding vote for her. She got the job (the statue is now a representation of her), they duly got married and that's where the term "sugardaddy" originated!

A short and, very convenient, stroll away is the ironically named Maiden Lane. Ironic because this used to be the former Red Light district. Of the 25000 residents in San Francisco in the 1800's, only 300 were women and of those almost 200 were prostitutes!

Onwards to China Town. The Southern Gate entry to China is the grandest ( in accordance with Feng Shui principles). San Fran was the main port along the coast and became a major city as it was the gateway to the gold in Sacramento. A lot of Chinese coming here in the old rush found that it wasn't at all that golden because of racism and hostility. In 1906, all the houses in China Town were destroyed because they were made of wood. The area was rebuilt really quickly. The City Hall and the Records Office were destroyed and, as most of the Chinese residents were illegal citizens, this worked in their favour!

There are 2 main streets in China town - originally Calle de la Fundacion (1st founding street) changed to Du Pont Street to and finally to Grant Street. Old St Mary's Cathedral is the oldest Roman Catholic cathedral in the Western United States. There is a warning to men coming to the area for other reasons: "Son, observe the time and fly from evil", as the streets around the church were synonymous with brothels! All the evil the sign was talking about was in Pyke Street (now renamed Waverley Street). During the gold rush there were only 3 Chinese women in town and they were all prostitutes. Ahtoy was an enterprising woman who bought her own freedom and then started her own brothel. Men paid in gold dust in those days and many tried to cheat by paying with brass shavings. She took them to court and made them pay legally!

The street was synonymous with gamblers and the shops had doors made of steel to delay the cops when they raided them. There are still alleged tunnels underneath! We watched June play the Erhu - a Chinese classical lute instrument. The same road has a fortune cookie factory where they make fortune cookies all day long. We went inside and tried out some cookie rejects.

The East West Bank (now) used to house the switchboard phone operators who had to memorise 8000 numbers and names in English and 5 Chinese dialects because it's disrespectful to talk about people in terms of numbers in Chinese custom. Portsmouth Square was the first plaza set up by the Spaniards and designed to be a public square. A man named Samuel Brandon came into the square shouting, "Gold, gold, gold - from the American River!". He set up 2 businesses - a newspaper in San Fran and a building supply store in Sacramento. He purchased ALL the spades, shovels and supplies from the other supply stores and created a monopoly - thereby becoming the first millionaire in California!

The American Transcontinental Pyramid - originally referred to as Herreira's p****- built in 1973 and still the tallest building in the city. Like many other buildings around the world which have not been well received by the public (i.e. Eiffel Tower, Pompidou, Millenium Dome etc), many San Franciscans didn't like it at first but now it has become a landmark of the city skyline. You used to be able to go to the top - until 9/11 - when it was replaced by a remotely operated camera which you can play around with to see the views. Not the same!

The Jackson Square Historic District is one of the oldest areas in San Fran. In Hotaling Alley - a man named Hotaling started a whiskey business. During 1906, the fire miraculously missed the Jackson area. Religious people said afterwards that the earthquake and fire was caused by people going to brothels, opium dens etc etc. This prompted a famous doggerel by Charles Field which taunted: "If, as they say, God spanked the town for being over frisky, why did he burn the churches down and save Hotaling's whiskey?"

The Barbary Coast Trail is about 6 hours long but we only did a small section. The Hippodrome is a historic dance hall. About 18months ago, the art store that moved in to the Hippodrome found the entrance to a tunnel which is now open to the public but few people know about it! The tunnel was blocked off at some point, so we only got to see a small section, but it was exciting knowing that the tunnels would have been used for everything illegal. "Shanghaiing" people happened when ship captains would approach tavern and bar owners to bring men into their boats to replace those who went AWOL or abandoned ship at port. Unsuspecting tavern customers would be drugged with opium-spiked drinks and smuggled unwillingly/unknowingly onto the ships. Shanghai Kelley had a reputation for this practice (hence the name) and took on the "challenge" of rounding up 100 men on a boat at his "birthday party".

In the art store, I saw some fun pin-up posters by an artist called Jen Oak with large ladies.

We went to a shop called The Station serving Blue Bottle coffee. I had a divine latte and ham 'n cheese croissant. The columbus tower has a copper exterior was built in 1906 and, for a while, was the Tallest building in San Fran. It now belongs to Francis Ford Coppola and he has a number of studios in there.

The North Beach area was settled by Italians. In the Vesuvio Cafe and at Citylights Bookstore, the Beatnik generation was formed. At the Condor, it's famous for the birthplace of the world's first topless (1964) and bottomless (1969) entertainment. Also famous for an incident in the 80's when a couple having sex on a piano were crushed! 2 places were pointed out as having great food: Cafe Trieste and Molinare Delicatessen. We went into the fudge shop (the one I'd been into on our first night here) where we could try free samples. This was also just around the corner from the amazing Sotto Mare which we'd been to for dinner in our first night!

One of the great San Fran eccentrics was a girl called Lillie Hitchcock who was obsessed with firefighters. When she grew up, she married a staunch Prohibitionist called Coit. She set aside $100000 for the "beautification of San Francisco" and the Coit Tower was built. During the depression era, a lot of artists were paid by the WPA to create social works.

At this point, our tour was done. Wes played us one more song, we tipped him and headed off in different directions. I returned to the Hostel just for a bit of a rest. Heated up my leftovers from the Mexican restaurant and chatted to a couple of people before heading out to the MOMA SF, which I'd been to before but wanted to go to again for a bit of culture.

The temporary gallery housed the Cindy Sherman special exhibition showcasing her works from the 1970's up until her 2008 society portraits. I have to confess, I used to be a huge fan of hers when I was at university studying History of Art in the 90's. And, to a certain extent, I still enjoyed seeing her earlier works, but after walking around the gallery and seeing just the same face over and over an over, I just got a bit tired of all the narcissism. I mean, how many self-portrait parodies can one do without them seeming stale? There just seems to be a lack of 'progression' on her part - just a mild variation of a theme.

I was really impressed with Osborn's sound installation "Night-Sea Music" - with reference to John Barth's short story (1966), a philosophical interior monologue by a spermatozoon in its journey to the ovum. It's modern art but with a great sense of humour! Jess's "Narkissos" (1979-1991) is composed of imagery salvaged from fragments of magazines, posters and old prints. The pencil drawings collaged together are the artists own meticulous renderings of his source images. This work obsessed the artist for years as he conceived the idea in 1959, started it in 1976 and completed it in 1991! Robert Arneson's life-size ceramics were fun and humorous - especially his pier called "Smorgi-Bob, The Cook" depicting a table full of ceramic food presented by a lip-smacking chef! Margaret Kilgallen's huge painting showing a couple and a sprouting tree - from the Mission School - influenced by the American vernacular such as Amish quilts, hand-painted signs and old-fashioned typography.

I felt really inspired by all the amazing art on display there. Their permanent collection of famous 20th Century artists is also quite impressive. Ended up at the Museum shop where I bought a couple of books - one of which sets out daily art projects over a period of 6 weeks. I'll start these when I go back to London so can keep busy and those creative juices flowing whilst I'm looking for work!