Blogs from San Francisco, California, United States, North America

Arriving to the airport early doesn't help Jonathan get here any sooner :(... read more

We woke up to an inch of snow!! That was fun packing the tents and everything into the car. But we made it to San Francisco!!! So far we drove 3300 Miles!... read more

Today is a free day! Di is up early to get all the laundry done in the hotel washroom. I have a bit of a lie-in.We catch-up on a few things, and then head-out at around 10:30. We have decide to make today a shopping day, I need some things for the cruise. We skip breakfast and walk down to the shopping area which is called Union Square. We spend quite a lot of time in Macy's. There are two separate stores, one for men and one for women. We spend 2-3 hours shopping. We then decide to go to Fishermen's Wharf for lunch and catch a tram that takes us right down there. We eat at a real nice restaurant that overlooks the Bay called "The Francescan". We have a good lunch. I have Crab ... read more

Woke up early after a good sleep and had waffles for breakfast at the Ramada Inn. We were planning to go to Muir National Park to see the giant redwoods and to try out the hire car and sat nav. The sat nav proved to be a bit of a nightmare to start with as no-one could make sense of what it was telling us and by using Annette's as well we got very lost. Eventually all wa sorted and we got to the park. The weather in San Fransisco had been very windy and chilly but in the shelter of the trees and inland it was lovely and we did a trail through the woods and were lucky enough to see this owl waiting to catch his lunch. We had lunch in the park cafe ... read more

The senior Jayes are at last off on their travels again after a long break. This time we are tackling California and some iconic sites with our friends from the otherside of the world. We have now allarrived in San Francisco a bit dazed and jet lagged but fine after a night in the Ramada Hotel. The journey out was very smooth all the connections worked fine. Started at 07:30 am with lift from home to Sandwell and Dudley station (thanks to Ron Jayes), train to Birmingham International Station, Shuttle train to Birmingham Airport, Coach to London Heathrow terminal 5, Plane direct to San Francisco, arriving 17:00 local time, midnight English time. Vern and Annette Dark met us at the Airport having flown from New Zealand and they arrived in San Francisco 5 minutes before they ... read more

WE made it to the airport. Mom has a wheelchair so we are about to go through the express security line. We just finished some Japanese soup at the food court. They have free wifi here. Long flight ahead of us. John dropped us off at the airport and I said goodbye to Sonia and the babies at work. I miss them so much already. Here we go - the start of our adventure!... read more

I ended up eating out a lot in San Francisco while I was there and I thought it'd be nice to recollect some of the amazing food I had :D 1) Uzen Japanese Cuisine, Oakland - In the not-so-shady part of Oakland there's this amazingly delicious Japanese restaurant with the most fresh sashimi I've ever had in my life! The price really rather hurts a bit but it's really worth going to and trying. The kaki, tako, bluefin tuna are by far my favorite! The sake is also really good; I think I had a lychee flavored one. By far, my biggest regret is not having come back here for another meal before I left. This is beating out not being able to go to the Google museum...thing! and the Lawrence Hall of Science (which was ... read more

We christened it the WHOW. The White House on Wheels is to be our home and transport for the next 2 months of sauntering around the Younited States and Canada.The orientation into the workings of the WHOW occupied around an hour and a half of convoluted instructions following which our inductor asked: "Did you understand all of that"? In fact I had basically tuned out after the part where she said, "Now listen carefully". One element that did strike a chord was on the topic of refuelling and how it would likely bankrupt us. Any guesses at the cost of a tank of petrol in the WHOW? The answer depends on whether you factor in the medical expenses of the heart attack that transpires as the bowser threatens the $200 level. Combine that with the inflated ... read more