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

Prone to disastrous fires, the city of San Francisco has the Guardian, a fireboat gifted by residents, to watch over them from the bay.

A collection of 20th-century automata, penny arcade games, and musical contraptions.

This Japanese treats shop may have been the first business to mass-produce fortune cookies in the United States.

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

Bonsai garden in Oakland is curated by the first non-Japanese female bonsai master in the United States.

This park is home to well over 100 handmade birdhouses.

Oldest building in California still in use.

The massive, incredibly rare instrument is over 11 feet tall with a range so deep it goes lower than humans can hear.

The installation’s official name, “You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies,” says it all.

A storybook European village in Berkeley.

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

A celebration of once forgotten materials.

Every Sunday, this Thai temple in Berkeley serves a backyard brunch.

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

This subtle Berkeley paving stone actually marks off a lawless tube of air that extends into space.

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