Sexy Statuary and Dungeness Crabs in SF

Last night we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. We weren’t sure where to go, we thought we’d start at Ghirardelli Square, and poke about the shops. The weather was unseasonably cold, rain came down in spurts, and there were tourists ducking in and out of little stores. One little store we visited had marble statuary depicting lurid sex acts between consenting Chinese, the woman on her back with legs up and the man between her–a position I’ve never seen. In the same shop a shopper was negotiating a price down from $5000 to $4000, all in a few minutes.

We walked and walked an passed an art gallery where people in tuxedoes and fancy strapless dresses were coming in and out. It was Leroy Neiman’s opening, and there was a box marked A-L and M-Z, proving that if you’re not on the list, you are not going to meet the great artist. Later we walked trying to find somewhere to have dinner, we went upstairs to Joe’s Crab but the wait was “between 30 and 90 minutes.” So we headed across the street and found Tarantino’s, where I ate a huge Dungeness crab in a ’60s style dining room overlooking the bobbing fishing boats below.