A stroll in the Parks: Day 2, pt 1: Oakland

We began Wednesday morning by having a light breakfast at a locale bagel shop. In the tradition of taking pictures of places we eat, below is "Star Bagels" complete with a sexy Russian lady adorning the billboard above. If you shop at Russian International Trading Inc., you too can look like a circa 1960s Bond villaness. So after I finished my croissant and Kate ate a bagel with copious amounts of cream cheese, we headed down to Embarcadero station and picked up the BART. It took us on a swift ride under the bay to Oakland. Admittedly I was a bit leery about exploring the 5th most dangerous city in the U.S., however, I was pleased that most of the city exceeded my expectations.

The main station in downtown Oakland empties out into an outdoor shopping mall. As it was early on a Wednesday it was pretty dead, but I can see where it would be a nice place to eat if you worked nearby, or a good place to shop provided it was convenient for you.

Oakland was having a Earth Day fair. Many non profits and government agencies were set up handing out information packets and various trinkets (which I'm certain were all produced with the greenest of intentions).

Kate scored some "U.S. Census" potato chip bag closers. Since we pretty much paid for them any way, Kate grabbed several. Thank you stimulus!

Chinatown in Oakland was pretty busy. It kind of reminded me of Flushing in NYC's Queens, however it is not quite as big.

From Chinatown we headed to a shopping/ nightlife district on the waterfront named for Jack London of "Call of the Wild" fame. Apparently London was a Oakland native.

London himself in front of the Marina, on the harbor.

There is a small boardwalk in Jack London Square where I quickly snapped Kate taking a picture. She probably was capturing some historic boats which are moored there, or the enormous cranes unloading cargo in the distance.

The following photo is the USS Potomac, once serving as FDR's yacht. Elvis actually owned this boat at one time before San Francisco ultimately seized it from Drug Smugglers in the 1980s. It actually sank to the bottom of the harbor before being restored to its current condition.

The following boat The Relief, is actually a floating light house. It was built in Boothbay Maine.

I snapped this photo of a fine residence in a bad neighborhood we did manage to stumble into while looking for a "Chinese Garden". We found the garden which was almost under an over pass, only accessible through a Chinese Seniors Rec center, an aside from the nicely manicured front lawn was over grown and unsightly.