Andy Jaeger big thinking for a small world

Ink

Extraordinary day yesterday. The touristy bit, going to see the sealions at Pier 39, was fun - although when you are up close, sealions really stink. Imagine a mixture of body odour and fish. Yummy.

The other bit of my day was reason three for coming to San Francisco - getting a tattoo. It might seem a little extreme to fly across the world just to get someone to put ink under the surface of your skin, but there are only a few places in the world (most of them in the US) that do blacklight tattooing. It's invisible on the surface when it's healed, but then glows white under UV lights. I went to see Rob Merrell at Goldfield's Tattoo, and two hours and $200 later, I am the proud owner of what he described as a "kick ass tattoo". We went round the houses on design, and finally settled on the main stars of the constellation Orion in blacklight ink (you can see them as red lines in the photo - they'll look like that til they heal over some time in the next couple of weeks) around a beautiful ornate bow and arrow. I love it (which is a good job as I'll be living with it for the rest of my life!) and it was surprisingly OK to get done. Like being scratched by an overactive cat. Actually, by the end I was just exhausted and white as a sheet.

Sadly, I checked out of the Phoenix this morning. My friend Drew arrives in San Francisco tonight, and we're booked into the Holiday Inn Golden Gateway, before heading off to Yosemite tomorrow night. I've loved my time alone in SF (being able to do what I want, when I want) but it'll be cool having someone else here to share it with.