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jamesqCanadair regional jets are nice. SFO is a well laid-out airport with easy access to Bay-Area Rapid Transit. This means that I went from YYC to SFO to downtown San Francisco with no headaches whatsoever. And Hotel Diva was a short easy walk from the BART station and Union Square.
My room (pictured below) was wee, but cozy. Given this was a retrofitted building that was probably built in the post-earthquake boom, I'm OK with that. It was well appointed, comfortable and very very quiet (I was on the top floor at the very back, so as far away from the street as you could get without being on the roof). There were macaroons waiting for me on my arrival and the staff was always helpful without being intrusive, just the way I like. I would recommend this hotel to anyone, except possibly people with kids, since there's not a lot for kids at the hotel.
Another thing I liked is that there were lounges on each floor (sitting areas, not bars) for large parties to congregate at. If I were to go back to SF with a large group, I'd recommend Hotel Diva just for that feature.
Finally, it's a sexy hotel. There was a condom in the room safe (with a card that read simply "safe sex"). Several of the room packages are designed with orgasms in mind (one's a "playdate" package that includes a night for two on the town followed up by champagne in the room. Another includes lube, satin scarves, feathers and an Ola vibrator). I didn't price these out, because I am single. Alas.
Anyway, the hotel was a block and a half from Union Square, and therefor from the cable cars, so getting around to touristy parts of town was dead simple. But I didn't need that for the first night, since all I wanted to do was have a light supper, go to see a play, and turn in for the night.
Before I came, I asked![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thebrucie where he had stayed last year. Turns out he stayed at the Hotel Mark Twain, which was in the same neighbourhood. His advice? Watch out for sketchy areas and have a dessert at Fish & Farm restaurant. Based on this advice I decided against my first choice for accommodations, Hotel Bijou (which was cheaper than Hotel Diva, and had a movie theme - including nightly SF-based movies in a 6-seat theatre reserved for guests), which seemed up my alley.
Hotel Bijou was right beside the Exit Theatre, which was showing a little one-man play that sounded like fun.
So here is the layout of the area:
I initially had dinner at a diner on Geary and Mason, then walked south to see how sketchy the area around Hotel Bijou was. And it wasn't sketchy at all, I'd seen far worse areas in my travels and this was making me think Bruce was a pussy.
And then I turned the corner onto Eddy Street. It was like someone threw the sketchy switch. I had to walk a half block to get into the Exit Theatre, and it was rough, like East Hastings rough (which is to say, don't bother anyone and they won't bother you). When I left the theatre to go to Fish & Farm, that other half of the Eddy Street block was just as bad. It wasn't just sketchy, it was crowded-sketchy.
Of course, nothing happened and no one bothered me. When I turned north on Taylor, the switch got flipped off again and I was back to an unremarkable after-business-hours downtown street.
In between was Jurassic Ark, the play I saw.
Jurassic Ark is a one-man play about a preacher who decides to make a story about Noah's Ark using the big-budget method of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. He's a creationist with good intentions, but the only reason his film gets made is he ends up being in the middle of a sex scandal. The hollywood production company green-lights his movie to ride on the bad PR. They make a movie that's in-your-face about how cruel and arbitrary God's wrath was, rather than the merciful God that the preacher imagines.
You have no reason to sympathize with the preacher, or his image of Noah and Shem as rifle-toting southern baptists on a velociraptor ranch, but in the end you do. He's a tragic figure more than he is a target for satire (though he's that too, it's just that by the end of the play, the scale has tipped from satire to tragedy). I quite enjoyed it, but I was a little sad to see that this funny play hadn't even filled the 20 seat theatre it was in (Exit theatre has multiple venues, and Jurassic Ark was in the smallest).
The play was good and funny. The theatre was funky and seemed deserving of attention.
On the way back I stopped for the recommended dessert - the Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse at Fish & Farm. It, like everything else I aimed to do that day, is well recommended.
My room (pictured below) was wee, but cozy. Given this was a retrofitted building that was probably built in the post-earthquake boom, I'm OK with that. It was well appointed, comfortable and very very quiet (I was on the top floor at the very back, so as far away from the street as you could get without being on the roof). There were macaroons waiting for me on my arrival and the staff was always helpful without being intrusive, just the way I like. I would recommend this hotel to anyone, except possibly people with kids, since there's not a lot for kids at the hotel.
Another thing I liked is that there were lounges on each floor (sitting areas, not bars) for large parties to congregate at. If I were to go back to SF with a large group, I'd recommend Hotel Diva just for that feature.
Finally, it's a sexy hotel. There was a condom in the room safe (with a card that read simply "safe sex"). Several of the room packages are designed with orgasms in mind (one's a "playdate" package that includes a night for two on the town followed up by champagne in the room. Another includes lube, satin scarves, feathers and an Ola vibrator). I didn't price these out, because I am single. Alas.
Anyway, the hotel was a block and a half from Union Square, and therefor from the cable cars, so getting around to touristy parts of town was dead simple. But I didn't need that for the first night, since all I wanted to do was have a light supper, go to see a play, and turn in for the night.
Before I came, I asked
thebrucie where he had stayed last year. Turns out he stayed at the Hotel Mark Twain, which was in the same neighbourhood. His advice? Watch out for sketchy areas and have a dessert at Fish & Farm restaurant. Based on this advice I decided against my first choice for accommodations, Hotel Bijou (which was cheaper than Hotel Diva, and had a movie theme - including nightly SF-based movies in a 6-seat theatre reserved for guests), which seemed up my alley.Hotel Bijou was right beside the Exit Theatre, which was showing a little one-man play that sounded like fun.
So here is the layout of the area:
- Hotel Diva
- Hotel Bijou
- Exit Theatre
- Hotel Mark Twain
I initially had dinner at a diner on Geary and Mason, then walked south to see how sketchy the area around Hotel Bijou was. And it wasn't sketchy at all, I'd seen far worse areas in my travels and this was making me think Bruce was a pussy.
And then I turned the corner onto Eddy Street. It was like someone threw the sketchy switch. I had to walk a half block to get into the Exit Theatre, and it was rough, like East Hastings rough (which is to say, don't bother anyone and they won't bother you). When I left the theatre to go to Fish & Farm, that other half of the Eddy Street block was just as bad. It wasn't just sketchy, it was crowded-sketchy.
Of course, nothing happened and no one bothered me. When I turned north on Taylor, the switch got flipped off again and I was back to an unremarkable after-business-hours downtown street.
In between was Jurassic Ark, the play I saw.
Jurassic Ark is a one-man play about a preacher who decides to make a story about Noah's Ark using the big-budget method of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. He's a creationist with good intentions, but the only reason his film gets made is he ends up being in the middle of a sex scandal. The hollywood production company green-lights his movie to ride on the bad PR. They make a movie that's in-your-face about how cruel and arbitrary God's wrath was, rather than the merciful God that the preacher imagines.
You have no reason to sympathize with the preacher, or his image of Noah and Shem as rifle-toting southern baptists on a velociraptor ranch, but in the end you do. He's a tragic figure more than he is a target for satire (though he's that too, it's just that by the end of the play, the scale has tipped from satire to tragedy). I quite enjoyed it, but I was a little sad to see that this funny play hadn't even filled the 20 seat theatre it was in (Exit theatre has multiple venues, and Jurassic Ark was in the smallest).
The play was good and funny. The theatre was funky and seemed deserving of attention.
On the way back I stopped for the recommended dessert - the Chocolate Peanut Butter Mousse at Fish & Farm. It, like everything else I aimed to do that day, is well recommended.
