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A SAN FRANCISCO WALKABOUT

There is no way you can see all of San Francisco on a short visit. At best you must treat it as a voluminous grab bag to be dipped into. Its contents are cultures and lifestyles that differ from one area to the next. History in museums and missions and well-preserved buildings. And the harbourfront crammed with sightseeing and fishing boats. If you devoted a week to unusual architecture you still wouldn't see it all.

There are walking tours and bicycles for hire, ferry boat rides to unique little seaside communities and excursions to outlying valleys where vineyards prosper. I want to do it all, but it's simply not possible. So, blessed with warm sunshine on my one day here, I choose to walk. Here's how it went:

A brief stroll from my hotel, Chinatown is the second largest Chinese community east of Asia. Residents number close to 100,000, and it seems as if all of them are out and about this Saturday morning. Confusion on Grant Avenue is total. Cable cars clatter through. Tourists wander against traffic lights to reach souvenir shops on both sides of the street. Impervious to the commotion, locals go about their business of carefully selecting vegetables and spices from sidewalk stalls. They seek out the fishmongers and herbalists, sellers of tea and noodles.