Angel Island Hike

We have been meaning to go to Angel Island for a long time. It combines two things I love: history and nature. We found out that both of those lived up to our expectations.

We took the ferry from Alameda, about an hour's trip. It was great to be out on the water and awesome to pass under the Bay Bridge. Nothing makes you feel more insignificant, and yet proud at the same time, than a big chunk of steel spanning the bay. When we got to Angel Island we arrived at a cove facing the town of Tiburon. "Tiburon" means "only rich people with sailboats and gucci handbags live here" in Spanish. :)
	We hiked up Mt. Livermore (not much of a mountain, really) and ate our picnic lunch with 360 degree panoramic views of the Bay, Alcatraz Island, San Francisco, and Golden Gate, Bay, and San Rafael Bridges. Naoto and I must be the most eclectic picnic packers of all time. We had sour cream and onion potato chips, rice balls with salmon inside (onigiri), garlic olives and gouda cheese, and a plum each. Ah the life of an international couple.
We walked down the mountain and over towards another cove where the old Immigration station was located. The Immigration station was pretty creepy and embarrassing. The tour showed us small, nasty rooms where a hundred or more people were crammed together in three-tier bunks. The men and women were separated, and until they could prove their case to be let into San Francisco, were not allowed to speak to each other. The bathroom facilities were not at all private and there was one shower for each gender.
There were two things that really set my imagination going about the station, however. One was the picture of Japanese mail-order brides waiting for their "husbands" to pick them up. They usually only stayed three or four days, unlike the Chinese who stayed weeks or months, because they were not excluded under the legislation. The other thing was that the Chinese who stayed in the station expressed their frustration and anger by carving poetry onto the walls. Some of them have been translated and it is eerily beautiful to read what those people wrote about the country they thought was going to be their land of opportunity. Anyway, I definitely reccomend it for any people coming to visit us!