San Francisco

Immediately after my internship, I flew to San Francisco for a short one-week vacation to chillax while I still had the chance.

Jet lag produces excellent morning photos

I made a day trip to south bay to visit Apple. I had lunch with my mentor and then went for coffee with a few others on the iOS team.

The reason I chose to go to south bay on this day is that Apple organized a small auto show at one of the campuses. I got to see a number of supercars and classics.

AC Cobra

McLaren MP4-12C air vent

Wings of freedom

Lamborghini Gallardo LP570-4 Superleggera mirror cap

AC Cobra Coupe

Salute

McLaren MP4-12C mirror cap

McLaren MP4-12C engine

McLaren MP4-12C door opened

Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG front emblem

The most intriguing supercars were the McLaren MP4-12C and the Mercedes SLS. I may just have a thing for door mechanisms, but I gotta say, scissor doors are the coolest. I think they intrigue me because I don't have a clear picture of where the hinge mechanism is mounted -- there's no obvious flat edge on which the door pivots like in traditional doors (leftmost edge) or gullwings (topmost edge).

I'm not too versed on classic cars, but I did recognize the BMW 2002! Oh, the things I learn from playing Forza 4. There were also a bunch of Cobras and a Porsche 356 Speedster in British racing green.

Automobiles aside, staying in San Francisco, specifically SoMa (South of Market for non-natives), was quite pleasant. Compared to the Tenderloin, where I stayed for an on-site interview. The surrounding area was decently clean (I would say not as clean as the loop in Chicago) and had plenty of attractions. Namely, the Apple store was only five minutes away by foot. :) Plenty of restaurants were close by, including Chinatown. (Aside/funny story: we went to a dim sum place for lunch, and I was awed when our waiter computed our bill (including tax!) in his head. I joked that I would never be able to work there.) We also walked along the piers and went to Ghiradelli Park one afternoon.

That said, rent in San Francisco is laughably expensive, to say the least. It turns out that rent for a one bedroom corner unit in a relatively nice location is $4k/month. To put this in perspective, a two bedroom/two bathroom unit in the penthouse tower in Chicago is $3.2k/month. One would think that high rent and high income taxes would be sufficiently large deterrents.

But inexplicably, I think that I will be sucked into this vortex known as the Bay Area.