More on Almaden and San Francisco

Packing to start the long journey home;   meanwhile some more trivia and pictures of notable places.

I have taken one of the days to visit the IBM Almaden Research Center, in San Jose.  This is an impressive place, as seen in the picture it resides in a middle of a nature reserve, on top of a mountain.  I have visited IBM sites in various countries -- Israel, USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, China (hope did not forget anybody),  and Almaden is by far the nicest one, has a very relaxed atmosphere,  and also responsible for some of the breakthroughs of IBM research.    A possible collaboration may lead to more visits- the minus side, it is far away, and 10 hours time difference for a conference calls.

In San Francisco itself,   there are many interesting places,  I have driven (not for the first time) through the famous part of Lombard Street which looks like this:

There was a long queue to enter this part of the road, which required stop and go in a steep hill climbing up, but it was worth the experience.     I also drove on the Golden Bridge and stopped there to find out that it is much colder and foggier than down on earth.    In Pier 39 I found the store for left handed 

known as "Lefty's".   One can purchase clocks that move anti-clockwise and a lot of stuff that can help to improve the life of left-handed people (like can opener,  I gave up on the ability to use can openers many years ago!).   I actually never understood why anti-clockwise clocks are relevant to left handed people, but discovered this time looking at some books that left-handed people always draw circles anti-clockwise (true for me).    I purchased a book for lefties as a present to my daughter Hadas, the only of my daughter which inherited this noble property from me.  I'll write more about lefties after digesting this book, but it is now packed. 

Last trivia item --  in the past I thought that Chinese restaurants are dominants in SF, they surely are present, but it seems that the dominant ones are Japanese.  I ate a lot of Sushi this week (I am a Sushi fan anyway -- the only form in which I eat fish).

Driving up and down the hills  is fun, but fun is over --- driving to the airport soon.