YouTuber and rising star Liza Koshy LOVES her some Dollar Store action.
Tag Archive: shopping
YouTuber Liza Koshy, set loose in her local dollar store.
Half as Interesting breaks it all down:
YouTuber JennaMarbles let her boyfriend Julien shop for clothes for her and tried on her new outfits sight unseen.
Day 2 — Sunday, April 26, 2015
Wandering around in Golden Gate Park:
The de Young Museum.
The de Young Museum’s perforated bronze exterior.
Pond and statues by the de Young Museum.
Loved this angle of the de Young Museum’s tower.
These two sphinxes fronted the de Young’s original Egyptian revival building when it opened for the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition.
Bacchanalian winemaking vase by Paul Gustave Dore.
The California Academy of Sciences, with its distinctive living skylight roof.
I missed the Japanese Garden and doubled back for it. But by then the place was packed, and the line of people waiting to get in snaked out the entrance. I regretfully passed.
Not just in the park, but throughout the entire city, I saw lots and lots of large, mature trees. So nice.
There are also lots and lots of gorgeous bronze statues everywhere:
I loved how dramatic this one looked from behind.
Beethoven.
Burns.
Emmet.
Garfield.
Goethe and Schiller.
King.
Verdi.
Discovered a memorial glen full of redwood trees, with a lovely stone river running through the shady center.
Several sets of stacked stones ringed the “river.”
This “bridge” over the river rocks is made of giant slabs of stone.
The REALLY big stone slabs were used to line the walkway.
By now I was feeling pretty parched. Ducked into this dive bar named Murio’s Trophy Room, est. 1959. It was cool and dark and quiet there while I had a couple of cold beers.
The bar back is copper sheeting with rough-hewn wood plank shelves. Lots of antique trophies, too.
One thing I’ve noticed about San Francisco is that only coffee houses and corner markets are open before noon. So I headed back for some more window-shopping on Haight.
The famous corner.
Mural.
Architecture.
Hippie shop with an impressive tie-dyed ceiling and chandelier:
There’s a fantastic shop called the Piedmont Boutique that sells everything any self-respecting drag queen should ever need. It’s easy to spot: just look for the legs hanging out the upper window.
They were nice enough to let me take pictures.
Pasties, pasties, pasties!
There were some really cool places that didn’t allow pictures — they even have explicit signs on the front doors saying so. One was Decades of Fashion. It’s a huge warehouse (you can see it behind me here) full of costumes and vintage clothing from the 1880s through the 1970s. There’s also accessories, jewelry, undergarments, shoes, luggage… It was amazing. No pictures.
Grabbed this off the net.
Then there was Loved to Death, a fascinating shop specializing in taxidermy, specimens, prosthetic eyeball and butterfly wing jewelry, poison bottles, unusual antiques, Victoriana, and other oddities and morbid curiosities. No pictures.
Stuff like this. Grabbed from their website.
Passed by a black guy on Haight, who commented that he was “lovin’ those killer sunglasses.” I didn’t react and kept on walking, but then he said to my back, “With a six-pack and a shotgun, you could take over the world!” Had to laugh, which made him laugh more. I think I have a new motto!
Got back around mid-afternoon and wrote postcards and chilled for a while.
Several times, we all used Lyft (like Uber) to get rides around the city. I was impressed. Prices comparable to or better than a taxi, with clean modern cars, clean English-fluent drivers, and our wait times averaged between 45 seconds and 2 minutes. No joke. You also get a picture of the driver and their car so you know what to look for.
Treated Tim & Alex to sushi at Domo. Didn’t take any pictures. We waited extra for the window seats. I tried uni for the first time. It was divine. Also got a Fiesta roll, with tuna, mango, and cilantro. It was interesting and surprisingly good. Discovered one thing on this trip: I’m not super keen on hot sake. Cold is lovely, though.
Next: Day Three ~ Market St. ~ Embarcadero ~ Pier 39 ~ Dinner @ Yamo ~ Ice Cream Bar
Day 2 — Sunday, April 26, 2015
In the morning, Tim & I popped over to the Haight Street Market for coffee. It’s a charming little high-end market. Their coffee bar features pour-over drip coffee — it’s strong and oh so good.
Love the Jimi Hendrix mural.
Tim makes Moby’s food from scratch, but that’s another post. This morning though, Moby’s breakfast consisted of a chicken back and neck, a couple of melted bone broth & turmeric cubes, and a whole egg.
He polished the whole mess off in under five minutes:
Then Tim set to work making Crabcakes Benedict for the three of us. It was to DIE FOR. You’d pay at least $30 for this in a restaurant.
OMG OMG OMG
Thoroughly stuffed now, I left the guys alone so they could get some work done while I wandered around. First, I explored Haight Street. Lots of transient hippies. Murals. Secondhand pot smoke. Tibetan shops — four in the Haight-Ashbury area alone, plus I spotted a high-end one downtown.
Lots of chunky stone jewelry.
I tried to remember to ask permission for pictures, but sometimes I forgot.
Bolts of fabric and lots of wild, furry coats.
I have a Tibetan singing bowl, but it sits on a wooden stand, not these stuffed rings…
Resin skulls. One had the alphabet, yes/no, good/bad, etc. so it could be used as a ouija board.
Scary carved wood masks.
I ended up going back a day later and getting a ring for our singing bowl. Glad I did, too. The wooden stand it had been sitting on (under the plant to the left now) disappeared under the bowl, and with the bowl now sitting on the ring, its gonging sound reverberates much longer than before.
Got a couple of touristy items from a tie-dye shop:
Randomness on Haight Street:
Architecture.
Architecture.
Loved this old hardware store sign.
Mural.
Then I headed three blocks west to the east end of Golden Gate Park. What a gorgeous place.
My first destination: the Conservatory of Flowers. OMG this place is amaze-balls. It’s an enormous greenhouse and botanical garden housing a world-class collection of rare and exotic plants. Completed in 1878, it survived the 1906 earthquake and is the oldest building in the park. It was one of the first municipal conservatories constructed in the United States and is the oldest remaining municipal wooden conservatory in the country. For these distinctions and for its associated historical, architectural, and engineering merits, the Conservatory of Flowers is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Places. It is a California Historical Landmark and a San Francisco Designated Landmark.
It costs $8 to get in. WELL worth the money.
Random bits of art dotted the place.
A wall of bromeliads.
Some doors between climates had to be closed; others were kept open.
Temperature and humidity is tightly controlled in each environment.
People have weddings in here, too.
Loved this stone slab bench. Took forever to get a picture without some people in it, though!
A giant bromeliad.
Extremely steamy in here. You can see the condensation on the glass, and some pictures came out foggy.
These strangler fig vines were growing straight out of the tiles.
A pineapple!
Ran across an outdoor swing dance class:
Coming up in part 2 of day 2: More Golden Gate Park ~ More Haight Street ~ Sushi @ Domo
I recently spent five days visiting my good friend Tim and his husband Alex in San Francisco. Had an absolute blast. Now I need another week to recover.
Day 1 – Saturday, April 25, 2015
Arrived around mid-afternoon feeling gross and drugged from Dramamine and still motion-sick. Took the BART train to the Civic Center downtown, then took a cab from there to Tim’s neighborhood, the famous Haight-Ashbury area. They live in a 100-year-old Edwardian. Here’s the view from inside the entryway of their home:
My gracious hosts, Alex and Tim.
I’d forgotten my sunglasses, so I bought these cheapies for $2 at the tackle shop on the way to the airport.
They put me up in their living room with a nice air mattress. Their dog Moby is a Kelpie mix.
In the evening we went to Japantown for dinner. Here’s the Japanese Peace Pagoda:
We ate at Tanpopo, their favorite ramen place. The bowls were ginormous. I could only eat about half of mine.
After dinner, we wandered through Japan Center, an indoor mall whose shops are devoted to all things Nippon. I got some postcards at a stationary shop, Tim pulled me into an incense shop, and I spotted a bonsai shop, which was thankfully closed or I may have had something shipped home. I had to take pictures of this insane Sanrio shop:
There was also a high-end kimono shop:
Random storefronts with interesting displays:
These Kewpie dolls will follow you home and strangle you in your sleep.
Back at home, we watched a brilliant animated movie by acclaimed artist Hayao Miyazaki on their big projection screen. Inspired storytelling, otherworldly creatures, and gorgeous watercolor-like visuals. Here’s a couple of stills from the movie, “Spirited Away“:
Slept like the dead that night.
Next: First full day — Crabcakes Benedict — Exploring Haight St. — Exploring Golden Gate Park — Sushi @ Domo
I found this product in the back of Bon Appetit magazine. It’s called the Butter Bell. It’s a modern version of an authentic French beurrier. It keeps room temperature butter sealed and fresh, without spoilage, refrigeration or odors. I can’t stand trying to spread hard, cold butter onto something soft.
First, you set out one stick of butter to soften. Yes, all of it is going to fit in there.
Smooch it in with a knife. See? It all fits.
Then you just place the bell, upside down, into the outer crock, which has been filled with about half a cup of cold water. Click here to see how it works.
Keep in a cool dark place, like the pantry.
At the produce market (North Park Produce) I go to, I’ve discovered this lovely, rustic olive oil soap from Lebanon.
I’ve gotten a bit sick and tired of store-bought soaps melting, cracking and generally not lasting very long. The block-y, square shape and the rough stamp imprint of these got my notice. Reminds me of expensive French soaps. Each is easily large enough to slice in two.
The brand is Al-Koura, from Amyoun Koura in Lebanon. Tel: (06) 950385
The lady at the check-out asked me if I liked it. Confessing I’d not tried it yet, I asked if she liked it. She told me her mother-in-law uses it for everything, including laundry. I guess she takes the bar out before the rinse cycle…
What really strikes me about the soap is that it really smells like soap. Pure, natural soap without any added flowery chemical scents. I love washing my hands just to smell it.
