Berkeley Botanical Garden

Yesterday Lauren and I decided that it would be an awfully good time to go and visit the enormous University Botanical Gardens. I've been looking for stuff to do online and it has had very good reviews, so we decided to go. To get there was easy, although about an hour walk, it only took about 20 minutes if we caught a bus that went from the campus right to the Gardens. Of course, we missed the first bus, so although we only walked about 10 minutes, it still took us about an hour to get there.



Getting there we were immediately stuck with the location of the gardens; they were tucked away in between huge beautiful hills with a view of the bay. Here are some pics






Getting inside, we found out that the park was divided into different types of plants depending on their world location. That is to say, there was a section of the park devoted to plants of south Africa, to plants of South America, Asia, etc. Each of these regions attempted to replicate nature plants and environments. We planned, or at least tried to plan, our trip around the park so we could it all, and headed on our way to the deserts of America. First we made our way through the arid house (for particularly sensitive climates, they had greenhouses).




Walking out of the arid house, we next encountered some real desert plants.


After getting through the deserts of Berkeley, we entered another house.

AWESOME!!




After checking out the sweet carnivorous plants section, we made our way into the lush landscape of Asia.




They had a beautiful Japanese garden. We ate our packed lunch here.


Next we made our way to south Africa.



We saw like 20 of these guys.





The beauty of the flowers was overwhelming; the entire park was filled with incredible plants. We next headed to the Mediterranean and a view of the bay that our ticket lady told us was awesome. She wasn't kidding.







It may be hard to see in the pictures, but the view from on top of the hill we were on was spectacular, we could see far out into the bay. After hitting up this area, we made our way down to a few other specialty gardens. First there was the Crops of the World Garden, and then there was the Chinese Medicinal Herbs Garden. They were pretty sweet.




Ooo, helps cure congestion.



Garlic!




After this we made our way to the coolest part of the Botanical Gardens in my opinion, the Tropical House. Part of the reason that this area was so interesting was because of a very special plant that happened to be in bloom while we were there; a plant they called the Little Stinker.




A chocolate tree! Well, I think cocoa technically.



And its reliable counterpart vanilla. I tried asking if they could make me a shake out of it, but they wouldn't.


And here is the beauty we came to see, Little Stinker. Its real name is Titan arum, and it is a plant native to Indonesia. There are only a few of these bad boys cultivated around the world. The coolest part though was the fact that we got to see this flower in bloom. First off, they've had this plant for about 10 years and this is the first time it has bloomed, and second, the blooming only lasts a day or two. It had just opened up the night before we got there. SWEET!! That's why you'll see the guy having a shirt with the plant on it, its um, you know, kind of a big deal.


Don't let its pretty exterior fool you though, this plant has the nickname little stinker, with good reason. Its common name is actually the corpse plant. When it blooms, as it is these pictures, it actually emits the stench of rotting corpse. During the first 8 hours of its bloom the stench will knock you over its so potent, according to our tour guide (the guy with the plant shirt). Smelling the inside of the plant gave us taste of this delightful odor. What a cool plant.




A slightly less extraordinary, but still cool, little plant to end on was this little guy. When you touch its leaves it will close. I made a little video of it.




After leaving the tropical house we started wandering out of the park. Here are a few pics of this wandering.






So, once again, a great day in Berkeley. One of the most beautiful displays of flowers and plants that I have ever seen. Sadly, it was time that we get home and get some work done. Thanks for swinging by.

Alcatraz Adventure!

So a few weeks ago I went on a tour of the famed prison of Alcatraz with my friend Lauren Baumann. It was a very exciting tour, compete with fancy cruise out to the island, guided tour, and tour on tape. It was an awesome trip, the tours inside of the prison were very cool. The only unfortunate part of the trip was that the only time that we were able to get tickets for was for a tour a 9:30 AM. Now, one may say, 'Andrew, 9:30? Are you serious? That is not that early at all.' To this statement I would respond, 'Why yes, I agree. I indeed frequently awaken before the 9:30 hour.' The only thing is, much needs to happen before the 9:30 AM start time. First, we need to be at the docks by 9:00 AM because the ship for the islands leaves at that time. Second, and far more detrimental to our wake up time, the time that it takes to get from where I live in Berkeley to the docks at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco is around 1 1/2 to 2 hours. This means that our leaving time is around 7:00 AM. Since I have Lauren in the group, this puts our wake up time in the 6:15 region. Sad!

Waking up that early wasn't too bad, mostly because we ended waking up at like 7:15 and rushing out the house as fast as we could. We hopped onto the BART (a train system that runs through the bay area, BART stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit) to San Francisco and then walked down the beach road to our destination. I brought along a camera, here's what happened.




It was very early…



This was the entrance to the Alcatraz touring company's liftoff site. From here we picked up our tickets and got in line to hop onto their cruise ship, a hybrid cruise ship (so San Francisco).







After getting onto the little cruise ship to the island we were let off at the bottom of the island. We soon found at that this dock was the only spot on the island that ships could enter the island from. Alcatraz had a long history of use during times of war, and for this reason, the rocks we carved out on all sides of the island to prevent any entrance to the island by boat except for this little dock. Cool!




After getting a brief introduction to the island from the man in the first picture who looks oddly like a ranger, we the proceeded to go on a guided tour giving an overview of the historical significance of the island before making it up to the actual prison. The island was not discovered for a significant time after the discovery of San Francisco, back in the day, because the island rests in between the peninsulas creating the bay in which the island is located. So, the view from sea makes it seem as if the bay does not even exist, that there is an continuous expanse of land; the island is occupying the space between the two peaks that enclose the bay. Later in the history of the area, Alcatraz also served as a military base protecting San Francisco during the Civil War. During the civil war troops lived on the island maintaining over 200 cannons in case of combat. The island never saw battle during the civil war. Here's our walk up the side of the island towards the prison.



Inside this covered area were two canons, one on each side, meant to protect the island from invaders on foot. Intense.





This part was cool and all, it was nifty to learn about the role that Alcatraz served in WW1 and WW2, but the tour got most exciting when it ended at the prison itself. The prison was pretty frightening from first glance. Knowing that so many famous, or infamous, people spent time here gave the area an eery feeling. An eerie Awesome feeling!






Entering the prison, aside from the gift shop located near the entrance, was very exciting. Soon after entering we were able to begin an audio tour that told stories from the prison as well as its history, narrated by people who actually lived and worked at Alcatraz. This tour took us through all parts of the prison, be it the cell block, the cafeteria, or the courtyard. Here are a few pics







Going around the prison cells, the audio tour gave us chilling accounts from some of the inmates telling of what life was like being a prisoner at Alcatraz. They spoke of how life was structured to an extent that escape was not even thought of as plausible, their life was too filled with either strictly regulated drills or time in their cell. The idea of sneaking away was very unlikely with the strict regulations that the prison imposed. This was understandable though, considering the fact that the prison housed some of the most dangerous criminals in the country; during Alcatraz's active life as a prison facility, it would house famous criminals such as the bird man and Al Capone. Most excellent. Though life was horrible, and escape seemed impossible, during the tour we were also told of a nearly successful escape attempt. This event would become known as the Battle of Alcatraz. As the guard told it, a man inside a prison rigged an abandoned piece of piping with a nut and bolt to create a little device that could pry open the bars of a cell if placed at the bars weakest spot. Using this tool, a team of inmates overpowered a guard while on their way back to their cell, and then the tool was used as one of the men climbed to the second level of the cell block to wait for a guard, patrolling the area, to return to take his key to escape. The guard came back and the prisoner overpowered him and took his keys. The escapees went to the door that would take them out of the prison, but found that none of the keys on the guard that they had overpowered worked for opening the door. You find out that the guard who had the key had, against prison policy, taken out this key because he needed it later in the night to let in cooks (or something) and did not want to return to his coat locker to get the key later in the night. To prevent this, the guard had put the key in his shoe, as to not forget it after he changed and left. Hiding the key in his show prevented the prisoners from escaping, but a fight ensued after a large group of prisoners realized that they would not be able to escape, and, had a few guards that they could use as hostages. The fight that broke out between the prisoners and two called in platoons of marines resulted in many deaths and remains the largest escape attempt made at the prison. Here is a picture of where the final gunfight took place, the spot where the marine ended up throwing a grenade at the escaping prisoners to halt their last stand.



Cool story right? The previous pictures of the cell block is where all this took place! Here are some more pictures of this cell block.






After hearing a few stories from the inmates, we made our way over to an even creepier part of the prison, solitary confinement; legendary cell block D.





This was a very dark place in the prison, the stories told by some of the surviving resident of the prison recounting their experiences in Cell block D were very dark. A story that stuck with me was of a man who, when he went into solitary confinement, would bring in a single coin. Since he would be left alone for days in the darkness, what he would do is try to find the middle of the room and then flip the coin up in the air. His next task was to then find the coin on the dark floor. After finding the coin, he would go back to the middle of the room, and then repeat. Whoa, talk about a guy desperate for entertainment. Here are some pictures of other spots in the prison we went through before going outside.



The laundry room.

The library. They said that the inmates did a great deal of reading, with favorites among the inmates being works of Kant and Hegel. Whoa.

The shower room. Yea.

Leaving the bulk of the prison got you outside in a courtyard overlooking San Francisco. The inmates in our audio tour said that the worst part about being at Alcatraz was the isolation combined with being just 1.2 miles away from San Francisco, a huge city. During the night they would be able to hear all sorts of sounds coming from the city, and during the day, they could smell the food coming from the many bakeries and restaurants in the city. Here are some pictures of the courtyard.







This pretty much concluded our tour of Alcatraz. After getting outside we saw that we had about ten minutes to run back down to the docks to get on our leaving ferry for Angel Island. We had tours of both Alcatraz and Angel Island. Angel Island is well known as being the sort of 'ellis island' of the west coast, having Asian immigrants come to the island before being admitted into the United States. The island is also known for the being the site of German and Japanese POW's and concentration camps for suspected Japanese-Americans. A dark place. Sadly, about 4 minutes of tour was devoted to these historical artifacts. The other hour and 26 minutes were spent convincing us that we should take our families to the island every year for a gorgeous camping experience that our children would remember for the rest of their lives. Yes, the island was now a family oriented camp ground. Although our tour guide neglected the 'historical significance' of the island, they did point out the many different types of foliage and small game that lived on the island, and the spectacular views of the bay area from the top of the island. Here are some pics




Our tour guide. She gave it to us STRAIGHT! She didn't mess around with our ability to take beautiful photos of the island. She was the most real part of the tour.



They weren't kidding, the view from this island was truly breathtaking.


Angel Island was, like Alcatraz, a base during the civil war. Here are some of the houses from that era of the officers and soldiers who lived on the island. Did you know that in the first big building in the picture they made 200 loaves of bread everyday! Neato




It was a great trip, Alcatraz was super intersting and intense, and Angel Island more family oriented and peaceful. A very excellent day in San Francisco. To cap off this tour, here is a little video that we took right before we left the island. Also, right before we left we got to try riding a segway; they give tours via segway of the island. \



A great tour, and a great day. Thanks for swinging by.