San Francisco
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2004
1
110
133
Trip End
Nov 01, 2005
San Francisco, United States
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Caught a taxi about 7am to the airport. Last night we almost had a taxi sharer (Kim) but she was flying at 7 not getting a taxi at 7. We got to the airport and once through security we went to the cafe for overpriced breakfast....and met Kim from last night - she slept through her alarm and missed her plane to Miami and her connection to Boston.....oooh, and her connection to Toronto! The airline put her on our flight for no charge. We landed in Miami and had a very easy immigration with no real queues - though we were photographed and fingerprinted. Kim diappeared to try and sort some onward flights to get home quicker. After a huge wait for our bags due to a broken luggage carousel we went through to the connection area for our onward domestic flight to San Francisco and it was chaos. There had been a security alert and as a result there were huge queues...2 people from the Galapagos trip were behind us in the queue even though they had flown out 2 hours earlier! The 5 hour flight to San Francisco was fine but they don't serve you food for free internally even though the flight times can be huge
01 San Francisco
. San Francisco is in California which is state number 1 on this trip. We had another long wait for our bags at the other end and then took a shuttle into town. The driver was lovely and gave us a running commentary into town - it turns out he is a tour bus driver most of the time. We got dropped at the door to our HI hostel and had a very friendly welcome. It's a lovely old 1920's hotel building and maintains hotel standard. We headed out to a local Thai restaurant and had an amazing cheap delicious Thai meal - the satay sauce was thick and almost as nice as Shane's! Day 292 Thursday 18/08/05 San Francisco
Eeeek. We chatted to the hostel reception staff and found out that Alcatraz tickets were selling out fast - with the next available on Sunday....the day we planned to leave. We headed out and caught a bus down to Fishermans Wharf and went straight to the ticket office. No solo tickets left but you could buy more expensive tickets that included another island - so we booked it for tomorrow. We wandered around most of the Wharf area (tacky, touristy and not that great) before walking up to Coit Tower. Coit Tower was built on a hill overlooking the harbour and has some interesting early 20th century murals on the ground floor. We caught the lift up to the top (stairs were closed) and were treated with lovely views of San Francisco - albeit a little shrouded by San Fran's foggy atmosphere. We then walked down into the valley and had a late breakfast in a lovely cafe at the bottom of Lombard Street. We then walked up Lombard Street - the "world's crookedest street" .... you know - the windy one that snakes it's way down with flower beds all round it....it's in all the films! Once at the top we people watched to get our breath back...
02 San Francisco With Alcatraz In The Distance
. yes, San Francisco is very hilly. We then walked along the tram route to the Tram Museum - up and down and up and down. The trams in San Francisco are the world's only cable pulled trams in the world. The museum shows everything from the installation history to what happens now if a cable starts to break! You see the wheels that pull the cables under the street and see the cables as they fly round the wheels (the trams simply grip the cable to move!). We then wandered into Chinatown and it is like no other Chinatown we have ever seen...so colourful, so many signs, so many Chinese. We found a fortune cookie factory and watched a lady make the fortune cookies in front of us - we hope our video comes out all right! The smell in the factory is so nice. We took a little detour to visit Citylights bookstore - a lovely big bookstore that hangs huge banners above the shop to protest against things like the Iraq war etc. Back into Chinatown and a walk along it's main street which led us to the main gate. We then walked into Union Square - the heart of San Fran shopping - Gillian quickly found a Borders bookshop (she has been suffering from the lack of decent affordable English language books while we were in South America) while Stewart sat and admired the cleaned up square. After Union Square we headed down to the cable car turnaround....the cars disconnect from the cable and they are manually turned round on a turntable before re-gripping the cable and heading back the way the came....it pulls in the crowds as most people hop on here for a ride
03 San Fran - the infamous curvy street
. After watching this a couple of times (and watching the street performers who congregate here...long queues equal money!) we headed for the Academy of Science. We went for the average chocolate exhibition (free tastings tomorrow :( ) but the aquarium and astrobiology sections turned out to be excellent. We saw penguins being fed before wandering around the rest of the exhibitions. They have a superb high coral tank which we appreciate more having seen coral reefs in real life.. but they had stuff we had never heard of! The florescent torch fish were superb! After a quick snack in a diner we headed off to another HI to join a guided tour of the Museum of Modern Art. The museum had a nice photography exhibition and the tour through the work by Richard Tuttle was excellent but most of it wasn't quite to our tastes! The HI group splintered quickly but we still decided to go to the Mexican restaurant...partly to keep the sane girl company. As well as the three of us there was the mad "Mensan" style host and a father & son double act from Hicksville (small town not of this planet) who amazed us with their American acts of dumbness...."they speak Spanish in South America?" The girl had a large cocktail which a school goldfish could have swam in...Stewart hadn't thought that American large could apply to drinks! Day 293 Friday 19/08/05 San Francisco
We caught the bus to Fishersmans Wharf and after a quick breakfast in an IHOP (International House Of Pancakes) we boarded our ferry to Alcatraz. We disembarked and after a short introduction film we headed up to the Cell Block and had an excellent self guided audio tour around the building. We saw where the Birdman stayed (but he had no birds here - that was before he came here), where Al Capone had his cell, went into the Isolation block, learned about the "escapes" and found out about the more famous incidents here
04 San Fran - the infamous curvy street
. We then headed back to the docks area where we went through the museum exhibits which showed how much more Alcatraz has as history...from the Fort to the Indian occupations in the 1960s. We then got on another boat and headed to Angel Island.....the sun had come out by now and most of the fog had disappeared...but you still can't see all of the Golden Gate Bridge! Angel Island was lovely. We took a scenic tram tour around the island and learned about the varied history it has had....again, it was a military base first and then it was a Chinese immigration centre...the Ellis Island of the East Coast is what they call it. Lots of families and school groups come here to walk, cycle, play or just laze around in the wonderful surroundings. We caught the boat back to San Francisco and walked around the rest of Fishermans Wharf. We went into the Musee Mechanique which houses a vast collection of coin operated machines..from fortune tellers to village set ups. We then headed to the revamped Ghiradelli Square which is a former factory now housing a rather posh shopping mall but being San Francisco it contains its fair share of oddities - from Tiffany Lamps & Boutique hat shops to pet shops & fancy dress. The highlight of the mall though is Ghiradellis itself - an ice-cream and chocolate shop! We each had a very large (but discounted) ice-cream sundae and some free chocolate samples before heading down to the tram turnaround to get our first tram! We had a 50 minute wait which was livened up by talking to our fellow queuers and by the street entertainment - from singers to escapologists! We eventually caught a tram and chose to stand right at the front hanging onto the outside! It was a fabulous ride up and down and up and down with lots of Bullet style road crossings. The driver was so funny and we left at the far end with huge grins. We did learn a couple of things though...not many locals use this because of the wait and those that do don't wait at the turnaround - the trams leave with some spaces so they can pick people up from intermediate stops...so the locals (and those in the know) walk up a couple of stops and jump on a tram without having to wait....so if you come here...DON'T wait at the turnarounds
05 Looking down the steep streets towards Alcatraz
! After some quick shopping (some of the chemists over here stock everything from sweets to kitchen utensils) we caught a bus along to our hostel and went for another fabulous Thai meal.Day 294 Saturday 20/08/05 San Francisco
Gillian headed out for a Chinese haircut (as well as being a little rough and red at nights....this area is also a huge ethnic area) while Stewart had a lie-in. We caught a bus to Haight and wandered round the normal city end - lovely Victorian houses and some nice shops. We had a lovely breakfast here in a famous local cafe - KK cafe. People head here for the famous Peanut Milk drinks & smoothies... the owners invented these as the gum disease ridden husband loved peanuts but couldn't chew them. Loads of people say you get health benefits and keep returning for more and more. The owners are really friendly and greet the locals by name. Stewart tried the peanut smoothie and liked it. We then caught a bus into the funkier area of Haight - the Haight Ashbury cross. It was made famous in the 60's and still retains a funky florescent dope ridden culture! We then walked into the Golden Gate Park where we toured the lovely botanical gardens before having tea in the wonderful Japanese Tea Gardens. We then caught a bus up to the Golden Gate Bridge where we soaked in the bridge views and read about its history. Still can't quite see all the tops because of the fog! We then caught a bus through Cow Hollow and headed back to the hostel. After a laundry (oh, the joys of travelling) we caught a tram over to Fishersmans Wharf where we had a lovely meal in McCormick & Kuleto's seafood restaurant which had huge windows overlooking the bay. We caught another tram back over to the city centre and had a look through some bookshops before heading back to the hostel.
