Golden Gate

It's quite a place.

There's a little park up on Russian Hill where you can stand and look out over the houses of the marina to the Golden Gate.

There's an island in San Francisco even worse than Alcatraz.

It's in the middle of the lake at Flashacker Zoo, and instead of gorillas, the population is nothing but monkeys.

There are only two laundries in Chinatown.

And out at Golden Gate Park, they have a band concert every Sunday afternoon.

Maybe it was just the bright weather, but everything looked clean and shiny as if somebody had taken a scrubbing brush to all the buildings.

We even fed seagulls.

Okay, they just put it in Russian just to piss me off.

Okay, after slicing through the Golden Gate fog, I wound past sunburned vineyards to Sonoma, a remote coast, and rolled down the windows.

To my left, California plummeted into the Pacific and seals barked from boulders cropping out of the foamy surf.

To my right, cliffs rose sharply and titanic redwoods shot up from the road's switchbacks.

So he's 42, engaged to a 15-year-old.

Crazy work.

As he sailed back through the Golden Gate, Rezanov realised that the entire northern coast of California was undefended and far sunnier than Siberia or Alaska, so he hatched a plan to extend Russian America into California.

In 1812, after years of stealthily surveying the coast, 25 Russians and 80 Native Alaskans hunters settled on a shelf-like plateau overlooking the Pacific on what is now Sonoma County's rugged coast.

It's quite a place.

There's a little park up on Russian Hill where you can stand and look out over the houses of the marina to the Golden Gate.

There's an island in San Francisco even worse than Alcatraz.

It's in the middle of the lake at Flashacker Zoo, and instead of gorillas, the population is nothing but monkeys.

There are only two laundries in Chinatown.

And out at Golden Gate Park, they have a band concert every Sunday afternoon.

Maybe it was just the bright weather, but everything looked clean and shiny as if somebody had taken a scrubbing brush to all the buildings.

We even fed seagulls.

And we were supposed to land on the Golden Bridge-

...

in San Fran- Golden Gate-

Uh-huh

...

[laughs]

[laughs]

Question number 26.

Into which ocean does the Golden Gate Strait lead? Is it Atlantic, Indian, or Pacific? [timer ticking] The correct answer is Pacific.

Question number 27.

What Middle Eastern dish consists of fried chickpea balls? Is it hummus, baba ghanoush, or falafel? [timer ticking] The correct answer is falafel.

You mean that house left here on a barge? Ah, that it did, mate.

Bound for the Golden Gate in the upper arm of San Francisco Bay.

Oh, fine.

Little shrimp fish in town in the backwater there called Wilson.

Recording by Ruth Golding.

Chapter nine, By the Golden Gate.

Grapes at fivepence a pound are an early and satisfactory indication that we have left the bare brown Sierras behind us and have reached a valley land flowing with milk and honey.

Honey is mentioned here only because it belongs to the quotation.

All day whilst the sun shines the seals play here.

To the north stands Tamil Pius, with wreaths and white mist at its feet and its head clothed in purple and golden brown reaching far up in the blue sky.

By here stands the Golden Gate, and beyond it the Pacific, breaking in white surf on the shore to the southward, and to the westward nothing between us and Asia but a wilderness of blue water.

End of chapter 9 Chapter 10 of East by West by Henry W. Lucy This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Recording by Ruth Golding Chapter 10 The Labor Question The question of labor, always a pressing one in the United States, is just now accentuated in California and the bordering states, which have been accustomed to look for service to the Chinese.