San Francisco Akihabara?

March 10, 2005 10:28 PM

I'm going to be in San Francisco for a conference from 3/14-->3/18, but sadly not the emerging technology conference. Anyway, I was wondering if there is anything like Japan's Akihabara--some sort of dense flea market with strange gadgets and such, that I might visit. Any sort of robot-themed "performance" involving flammable materials would be cool too, but I've heard that Survival Research Labs isn't allowed to play in the city any longer. In short, what would be some cool geeky/techy things to do while there that might not be available elsewhere and won't land me in jail?

Bonus points for any good bookstores or restaurants in the neighborhood of the Adante hotel at 610 Geary st. The conference is at the Moscone center. I've been to SF before, but I'll be free to geek out this time as I will be traveling by myself. Oh, and I've been to the exploratorium, which is cool.

posted by mecran01 to travel & transportation (9 comments total)

well, jim heagy has a warehouse full of weird military and industrial surplus and a quadrillion pounds of old metal type out at the decommissioned Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard. There are lots of artist studios out there that have open studios a few times a year. Hundreds of studios, I think. Heagy used to have a few immense Tesla coils out there and lit em up once in awhile but I think the city or the Dept. of Defense, who still manage parts of the base, told him to cut that out.

There are lots of great restaurants along Geary. What do you like? Naan and curry is right there, and lots of other cheap Viet, Indian and Chinese places. Some good Thai around there too. A bunch of great bars, a few good bookstores (Acorn, I think, is on Polk just above Geary).
posted by luriete at 10:46 PM on March 10, 2005

The squidlist calendar often lists such things. It's not really open studios season, nor, sadly, Power Tool Drag Races season.

But there is a fundraiser for the Flaming Lotus Girls on the 18th if you're still around.
posted by judith at 11:20 PM on March 10, 2005

If you haven't been to the Metreon, it sounds up your alley.
posted by rfordh at 1:19 AM on March 11, 2005

Keep an eye out for Dorkbot but I don't think they have anything planned during your stay.
posted by skylar at 2:00 AM on March 11, 2005

as far as i can recall, the only 2 reasons (but they're good ones!) to go to the pier in SF are the musee mechanique (antique geekiness) and the sea lions (not so geeky, but fascinating). the rest of the pier is sort of like a really crowded outdoor mall.
posted by chr1sb0y at 5:20 AM on March 11, 2005

Second the Musee Mechanique. Japantown also has some cool Japanese thing stores, although nothing particularly electronic.
posted by Nelson at 8:17 AM on March 11, 2005

For geek shopping, hands down, it's Frys down the pensinsula. Being a geek groupie, that's where I can see all the boys drooling over resistors and harddrives and game systems. Their open-box-buys are questionable (they take returns without checking for parts or function and put them back on the shelf).

The Musee Mechanique is one of my favorites stops, as well. Bring singles, nickles and quarters. Take the F line trolley in and avoid the big price of touristaville parking. Or be a total tourista and take the cable car.

The Metreon is quite spendy -- but worth seeing once. A Bandai store, a weird arcade, virtual bowling, a gamer store. Geek heaven. Yerba Buena center, next to the Metreon, tends to have outsider and urban art that you can't see anywhere else.

Semi-near your hotel is a sake/wine bar called Cafe Royale, I believe, on Post and Leavenworth. Black felted pool table, cool vibe and an antique bookstore next door with amazing sci-fi pulp.

The best bookstore in all of San Fran, for the atmosphere at least, is City Lights at Broadway and Columbus. It's a piece of beatnik history. And Vesuvio, the bar next door, is awesome for chilling with a beer and people watching.
posted by Gucky at 9:29 AM on March 11, 2005

There really is no local equivalent to Akibahara. For all the hype of recent years, San Francisco is a pretty low-tech town. There's a flagship-level Apple store, which is neat but not nearly as impressive as one might expect, and the Sony store at the Metreon which is eh-okay, and a handful of decent whitebox PC shops. But certainly very little in the way of strange gadgetry or wide variety. Hell, even the last remaining PC/console game store downtown closed a year or two ago.

If you have any interest in odd retrohardware, access to a car and a block of several hours to use it, a pilgrimage to Weird Stuff Warehouse is worthwhile, but it's way the hell out in the boonies.

Fry's, mentioned above, pretty much sucks ass. It's just a bunch of PC hardware, some consumer electronics, and a couple rows of Radio Shack parts. And they have that nasty habit of reselling defective returns as new, which is both illegal and annoying.

Alas, lots of technology gets invented and developed here, but because of the high concentration of technophobe boomers from traditional nontechnology industries -- one of the few demographics that can afford to live in San Francisco -- there really isn't much of a technology product market.
posted by majick at 9:57 AM on March 11, 2005

second the "check out squidlist" rec. SRL cannot do shows in the city anymore, really, and hardly anywhere else that can't get like a couple million dollars insurance for them, but kal of seemen (who used to work with SRL) does invite-only shows off and on, usually posted through squidlist.

i've actually never had the opportunity to see an SRL show (they got dropped from the lineup on the one i was going to go to about a week before it happened due to insurance concerns), but i've seen a couple really fun seemen ones.
posted by fishfucker at 10:04 AM on March 11, 2005