Ocean Beach

So here, by special request, is some coastline. This is Ocean Beach, to the west of the city. The Pacific fills the horizon from south to north, turning silvery white towards sundown. The sound of the waves is somehow both loud and soft and mesmerising. You could, I imagine, stand and watch the waves murmuring across the sands all day, listening to that huge whisper, and never get bored.
En route we passed through nearby the huge Golden Gate Park, for a pot of green tea in the Japanese Tea Garden, a large , traditional, ornamental tea garden which has stood in a corner of that park for decades. It features pagodas, cherry trees, a Zen corner, and some monster koi carp in extraordinary colours (cream white, crimson-orange, and black dashes that look a little like Japanese calligraphy). They surface underneath the ornamental wooden bridges and wave their antennae at you - asking for food I guess! The air smells of warm pine sap and spicy sagebrush. My Dad used to bring my brother and I to the garden back in the 1980s when we came over to see him and ever since, no visit to San Francisco has seemed complete without a pot of ryoku cha by the koi pond.