Where the polar bear watches over everything, and every drink is a double.

A hardware store Buddha statue installed to deter vandalism wound up attracting Vietnamese immigrants who came to pray.

At the base of the Golden Gate Bridge, a small sign basically begs for a high-five.

In all of the 29 years it was in operation, no prisoners ever escaped successfully... or so they claim.

Concrete strongholds stand guard over the Golden Gate.

A working model of the entire San Francisco Bay and much of the Sacramento River Delta, complete with regular tides that change every 14 minutes.

A living time capsule of the 1960s Richardson Bay water-front.

Abandoned landscape once home to "the world's largest winery."

Thousands of crosses and markers for soldiers who lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan blanket a California hillside.

The Laureates here get something even more coveted than a Nobel Prize: free parking for life.

The century-old bell and clock tower at UC Berkeley is the third-tallest in the world, and has fossils.

This restaurant offers the original California cuisine.

Where the alchemists dream of transmuting base metal into gold was actually achieved.

A storybook European village in Berkeley.

A pier that used to act as a busy ferry dock is now a decaying favorite of local fisherman and urban artists.

A playground built by the kids that is a child's wonderland, and a helicopter parent's nightmare.

The only museum of sake in the United States is nestled in an unlikely California college town.

A 90-acre park on former landfill that hosts an annual kite festival.

A store that sells all manner of bones, insects, and animal curiosities.

Where a staggering 747 ships were constructed during World War II.

9,000 square feet of vintage and modern mechanical toys, dioramas & sideshow curiosities.

An "anarchical" no man's land, complete with garbage sculptures and a hobo-run "Landfillian Library."

A shape-shifting buy-sell-trade bookstore, born to Beatnik Era spirit.

Worker-owned cooperative and resource for those looking to lighten their ecological footprint.