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Published: September 17th 2008
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Day 2 and we're rearing to go surprisingly early given the 19 hr time difference. Must have been the great sleep we all had. Headed downstairs for our complimentary breakfast which comprised of; bagels with cream cheese, huge muffins, pastries and selection of cereals including Fruit Loops, Sugar Pops, Frosted Cornflakes & Coco Bombs. Far out! Not for the faint hearted nor us after today - gross!
Grabbed the wallet and a map and headed down the hill towards Union Square which was only a few blocks away. After looking at the looooooong queue for the Cable Cars decided to forego this for a while and hit the mall. There was every store you could possibly think of and more in this beautiful building which just went up and up and up. Found Bloomingdales and got my Merrels for half the price of at home - yay! Headed up Market St ending up in the Old Navy Store. Could have got really carried away here, but left with only a pair of jeans for $25. The best thing about them tho' is that they come in "short" length and I can wear them without cutting 6 inches off the bottom!
Found the Radio Shack shop and purchased a mobile phone for $10 - amazing! Can't use it at home unfortunately but for that price who cares. Calls are cheap as chips as well so I think we will get good use of it. Met a lovely San Francisco cop in here who let the kids sit on his motorcycle and check out his gun! Jordi is a little weary of policemen for some strange reason....
Whilst walking back up Powell decided to hop on a cable car that was passing by - easy peasy - just jump on board and hang on tight. Ash made friends with a lady from Nashville, Tennasee who was holding onto her just in case she fell off going up the steep, steep hills. What a really neat way to get around, but incredibly hard for the driver guy who has to manually operate the braking system.
Found the cable car museum by chance and got to see all the mechanics of the system. It started over 100 years ago because the horse drawn trams couldn't cope with the hills and the city needed an alternative. The poor ole horses use to
only last a couple of years at most due to the strenuous work. Managed to find a cable car christmas decoration to add to my collection which was a bonus.
Ended up back in Union Square and checked out Tiffanys jewellery store and the Cheesecake Factory at the top of Macy's - (yummy but both stores a bit too rich for our taste) before catching another cable car back to our apartment for a rest.
After a bit of leg rest we walked to the Cali Market to do some groceries. Food prices are really expensive in comparison to NZ and the selection seems really limited - except for icecream which is sold in 1000 different flavours and in bucket sized pails. Weird... This may have been a smaller supermarket so it will be interesting to compare other stores.
Steve is really enjoying spotting all the BIG American cars - he's in petrolhead heaven, oooooing and ahhhhhhing all the time.
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