My friend Debra and I have been feeling pretty scrooge-y this holiday season. So we decided to get together on our scooters and hit the streets to see if we could find some Christmas cheer. It was a very successful ride, taking us from Scoot headquarters in Soma to various locales all around the city.
A scooter is really the best way to see the city, particularly around this time with all of the crowds and the traffic. We were able to zip through the streets, (carefully) lanesplitting down traffic-congested blocks, and parking right in front of wherever we were going. I highly recommend it.
Our first stop was Union Square, where I thought we'd find a critical mass of Christmas spectacle. The giant tree in the middle of Union Square was of course in full regalia. But the ice rink was empty, except for a mini-Zamboni and a couple of workers cleaning off the ice. Which was just fine by me. I love watching the Zamboni do it's thing. Something about it is calming and reassuring.
This year, Macy's blocked off traffic on one street and projected giant holiday animations onto the side of the department store exterior. Meanwhile, kids were flinging these cool LED lighted throwies with propellers into the air, that slowly descended to the ground like falling stars. It was a pretty chill vibe, given the location.
Afterwards, we headed to the Hyatt Regency to see their holiday decorations. The main attrium was just stunning. Photos can't capture how breathtaking the light display is. Millions of lights are draped down dozens of stories from the roof, and it's just dazzling.
The diorama in the center of the attrium is also really sweet, if you are into that kind of thing. We were VERY into it.
We had to take some fun pictures on the holiday display of course.
It was getting pretty late. But we did manage to see a few houses still lit up, including the garish and cool house on Castro near 14th Street in the first photo of this blog post.
We finished off the evening with some fusion ramen in the Mission, as one does. Mission Holiday Scooting accomplished! Maybe next year we'll taking a bigger group of holiday scooterists!