A couple of days before Christmas (on Saturday the 23rd), Yoshi, Jackie and I went on a fitted-cap purchasing mission for Yoshi's christmas present. We decided after visiting some smaller stores in our neighborhood (Lower Haight) that we needed to go to the mall. We found the proper hat (I think it says "Jay-Z at 30") and you can see Yoshi wearing it in all these pictures. After that, we wandered down to the food court so Yoshi could get something to eat. It was crazy. I felt unnerved and defenseless.

It was more crowded than a basketball game. At one point, Jackie went to the bathroom and couldn't find me and Yoshi again for close to 20 minutes ("It was seriously like playing Where's Waldo," says Jackie). After Yoshi ate we needed to get out of there.

We decided to visit the Filipino Cultural Center, which is conveniently located in a mall alley behind all of the movie theaters on the 5th floor. Getting there, however, is no mean feat. We followed the signs to elevators that only went to the fourth floor. We got out on the fourth floor and walked around the corner to another set of elevators which were blocked off by a "velvet rope." We tried to take one of those up but it needed a key. Then we saw an open door with an insulation and bare wood hallway behind it.

This is where the urban exploration begins. We walked down the hallway past back service doors to all the stores. At the end of the hall was an Exit sign leading to fire exit stairs. They were labled "Roof Access" which made us decide to go up. At some point (maybe the 6th floor?) the stairs we were on ended at a locked door, but there was a staircase opposite the one we were on that was close enough to climb/jump onto. So we switched staircases and continued up to the eighth floor. We saw hanging-out detritus like a few beer bottles, cigarette butts, and some graffiti. Mysteriously, two doors on the eighth floor were propped open by cans.

We walked out into an empty construction site/office-to-be.



We found a vent (possibly from an elevator shaft) that was blowing cinnamon-scented air up from the food court. We also found that we could open a door/window into the ceiling of the mall and look down on the shoppers below, through the dangling display lights. There was much wandering and exploring the small rooms off of the office before Jackie realized that one of the locked doors had a fresh breeze (the breeze of freedom) blowing behind it.

This is the part of the story where Jackie pulls a screwdriver out of her purse and picks the lock.

THEN WE'RE ON THE ROOF!

...which was awesome, of course. No explanation needed except that the sky was huge and we could see everything.

On the way back down a friendly Westfield security guard surprised us on the fire stairs and asked, "Are you lost?" To which I responded, "We were just looking for the Filipino Cultural Center." He gently informed us that the Center wasn't open and that we had been spotted. Into his walkie-talkie: "Officers on the roof can step down, I found the lost patrons." And to us: "You guys had an APB out on you." He escorted us out into the Mallspace and we shopped and shopped and shopped, forever.

We think we were spotted by people working in an office with windows looking out onto the north side of the roof. If there had been security cameras they would have come after us a lot earlier (we were on the roof for about 45 minutes). So if you go: avoid the office. Although once they saw us we got to play at spies and scamper around steathily.