Moving to San Francisco, any tips?

Next January I will be moving to SF in order to do my Masters degree. So can any locals or regular SF visitors can give any tips, Thanks

Never ever bend over to pick something up.

Ok, that's a joke,and a bad one I know, but I could'nt resist.

There are a few members from the bay area on ATS, I'm sure
they can be more helpful than me.

hey welcome to the city!
i'd be most glad to help break you in and show you the routes to good eats, good music and fun stuff to do.
PM me.
cheers,
-b

well, here are some tips on living i SF.

how much are you willing to pay for rent?
i assume your going to UCSF? which is in the middle of the city. part warm side, part fog.

summer is our coolest month generally. lots of fog, although this summer was pretty darn sunshiny.
sept. - oct. are our sunshine months - or late summer for us.

the rainy season starts around jan. and hit pretty well all through feb.

living in sf.
there are neighborhoods here that offer up just about any type of 'vibe' your looking for.
i'll guess that you'd want to live near school, so that puts you in the inner richmond district.
basically a chinese/russian area. mostly chinese. russians populate more of the outer richmond, near ocean beach neighborhoods. still those neighborhoods are predominantly chinese.

pricing for rent? again, if your living off campus, expect to pay on the low side, around $1500./mo for rent. it's hard to find a place in that price range that comes with a garage.

-- also,l if you have pets, you automatically fall in a low percentage of homes open to you.
cats are doable, but you have to look hard, and your housing is cut way down. dogs are even worse. very hard to find dog friendly places. leave your pets at home.

almost ALL housing here in the city share walls with someone, so it's hard to have a nice home audio system (and sub) without impeding on someone's privacy.

www.craigslist.org is one of the better places to look for housing. there used to be many agencies that you could hire to help gain resource like rent-tech, and others, but most have gone away after the dot-com bust.

food in this town is amazing! the possibilities are endless. there's hi-end and cheap and cheerful which means great food that's cheap. the list is too long, so i'll not even go there on this thread.

public transportation is very effective here. you might want to ditch your car if you have one.
it cuts down on looking for parking, etc.

there are great music venues here as well. slims, bimbo's, the great american music hall, just to name a few.

neighborhoods to stay away from are:
hunters point, & tenderloin. outter mission is a ghetto as well, but it's cleaning up.

the infamous haight street district is a great place to go and get an album at amoeba records and a beer at murio's trophy room. there's always a selection of street hippy trash along haight, but the pluses out weight the minuses. lots of cool shopping, and people watching, & it's right next to golden gate park which is one of the most beautiful inner-city parks in the nation!

just outside of the city across the golden gate bridge, you have marin where mountain biking got it's start. great trails over there. china camp, etc.

affordable neighborhoods are:
richmond, sunset, western addition, mission (the hipster district), haight st.

expensive neighborhoods are:
pacific heights, knob hill, north beach (very crowded living!)


all in all, SF is a great city! good, smart people, and great resources for anything that you can imagine. but if you have a car, need a garage, have a stereo, then it's not the best place to live because you will be sharing a wall with someone. (that's why i moved to pacifica recently. i'm a music enthusiast, and was tired of living quiet. but that's just me)

if you have any specific questions just post 'em here and i'll help as much as possible.
cheers,
-b
.


[edit on 21/12/2012 by zooplancton]

[edit on 21/12/2012 by zooplancton]

Hey thnks zooplancton, actually Im going to the Academy of Art, im doing a Master in fine Arts
The main building address is 79 New Montgomery Street and I believe most of my classes will be held there. And yes I am living on campus and it costs me about 1,200 per month...

When I arrive I need to buy a pillow, bed sheets and so on, ia there a place near tha building with reasonable prices (not looking for the 100000 thread egyptian cotton stuff) jaja

Thanks

[edit on 4-12-2006 by carcharodon]

Watch this movie:

imdb.com...

Originally posted by carcharodon
Next January I will be moving to SF in order to do my Masters degree. So can any locals or regular SF visitors can give any tips, Thanks

hey car',

ok so you'll be more towards downtown (or at least it's more downtowny than neighborhoody). interesting area. i can't refer you to any places to buy your bedding supplies, but there is no lack of consumables to be had. learn the bus system and your golden.

when your out here, give me a shout and i'd gladly show you around a few places.
i'm also in the "art" industry; designer, and have been doing it for 17 years now. wouldn't trade it for anything - well.... almost anything.

you'll be near some good eats and a cool theatre.

cheers,
-b

Isn't San Francisco the place that will sink in the ocean after a catacylsmic event??

7A

Isn't San Francisco the place that will sink in the ocean after a catacylsmic event??

7A

D o u b l e P o s t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Originally posted by 7Ayreon
Isn't San Francisco the place that will sink in the ocean after a catacylsmic event??

7A

not necessarily. it all depends on the earthquake and where you are in the city. oddly enough one of the most expensive places to live in the city is at the waters edge, built on land fill. places like that will be highly susceptible to "liquefaction", but other parts of the city are bedrock.

SF isn't very flat and juts out of the water pretty well. i couldn't see it all falling off and disappearing, but then again, we haven't witnessed certain levels of quakes that are definitely possible. -- i mean at some point, the entire cali coast will change quite a bit, but it's over a larger period of time.

anything IS possible though.

i'm actually working on getting my survival kits in better shape just to be smart about it. you never know what's going to happen really.

Ah yes the big quake... it might happen or not, nobody knows...
I didn't worry about that when I chose to go to SF, I've been in mild tremors, you know the whole think moving falling things... I remeber those scared the crap out of my Brstish teachers at highschool, I had some good laughs after...

Anyway, is for example Cupertino far away, can I take the bus from downtown?

There is a place down there I want to visit

Thanks

hey car,

cupertino is very easily accessed. just hop on can train in the city at king street. that will roll along the bay stopping at all the suburbs along the way. super easy to get around.
they even allow bikes, so bring your bikey and your golden. (going to the original apple store? )

-b

You got me zoo.. that is where I am going....

Let me put it this way, I've never had a PC in my life!!!!

and no reason to.

i actually had to work on a pc for 4 years when i first moved out here to SF - in the creative industry. couldn't talk the staff into buying a mac... but i got used to them, and saw the pro-s and cons of both platforms.

but, in the end, apple provides a slicker, more intuitive UI and handles the graphical apps way better. i recently stepped up to a mac pro with 3 gig s of ram and a 30" monitor and have been pretty dang stoked ever since.

amazing power now with these intel chips.