After a late night of exotic entertainment at Asia SF, our day (February 24, 2008) got started very early, and although it was raining I decided to capture a few photos Union Square and the area surrounding our hotel. I walked just a few steps east to Union Square, the heart of San Francisco’s shopping, hotel and theatre district. Big shopping venues such as Macy's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus surround this historic square. Luxury stores such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dior, Chanel, Prada, Armani and Hermes are also represented.  Just west from The Handlery are two historic theatres: the Geary and Curran Theatres. The Moscone Convention Centre and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art are close by as well. Before our excursion to Muir Woods I got a quick hour long walk in to check out some of the streets surrounding Union Square and had a delicious waffle breakfast in a little 24 hour eatery called Pinecrest Diner. Punctually at 8:30 am we got picked up by a diesel-powered van from Incredible Adventures, chauffered by our charming driver and local expert Michelle. She had three other guests in the van: a grandmother, mother and granddaughter team from Texas who were here for a quick girls' weekend getaway. Off we drove, and Michelle started to explain the various parts of San Francisco and Marin County that we started driving through. We made it up into the Muir Woods National Monument where we admired one of the few remaining old-growth coastal redwood forests. Before logging started in California there were an estimated 2 million acres (or 8000 square kilometers) of redwood forests. By the early part of the last century, most of these trees had vanished, cut down for construction and industrial purposes. In the early 1900s, a local Congressman by the name of William Kent was acutely aware of the need to preserve some of the last remainders of these forests, and he purchased 611 acres (2.47 square kilometers) of land...