It's good being mayor of San Francisco! Sure, there's lots of boring meetings, and you have to work on the weekends sometimes, but there are perks—perks like the over $95,000 of travel Ed Lee received last year.

According to the mayor's annual economic interest statement, of which Matier and Ross have helpfully blogged the high points, San Francisco's many "sister cities" covered trips to places like Paris ($21,986), China and South Korea ($22,292), and Bangalore ($19,837).

The sister city program, San Francisco's office of Economic and Workplace Development says, has "the potential to carry out the widest possible diversity of activities of any international program, including every type of municipal, business, professional, educational and cultural exchange or project."

That, or to send the mayor to places like Haifa, Israel ($3,546) for a symposium on emergency management and again to China (this time for $13,781) to participate in in the Wuhan International Friendly City Summit.

Lee also was the recipient of a number of gifts, M&R note, like a gift worth $1,363 from Cork, Ireland. The mayor also received numerous presents worth around $440 to help pay for his many trips, from folks as diverse as Mercedes Benz of San Francisco and, of course, Rose Pak.

[SF Gate]