Advertisement
Published: January 30th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Trip back to San Francisco was fairly easy and we dropped Jason back at the airport to make his way back to UK.
Sarah, Dave, Mark, Beckie and myself then stayed in San Fran for a few more days to take in the sights of the city. We stayed in "The Opal" hotel on Van Ness. Good value place and you get breakfast thrown in. Its near some good transport links so is a pretty good bet for the cost conscious!
After managing to return the fun bus to Budget in their underground car park (Dave and I did not think we were going to make it down the ramp in places - very tight!) We walked into China town past the cathedral and some other historic buildings. China town was a slightly mad place with lots of open shops selling trinkets and gifts from Asia - took us back to some of the other places we have been to. We had a few beers in the Buddha Bar and met up with Mark before grabbing some food at a restaurant. Dave and Paul both ordered different soups - when they bought out a big bowl for each and
some little ones (which they took away when they realised there was just two of us for soup) we should have known we were in trouble. The portions were gigantic and nobody managed to finish the meal. Sarah reckoned it was a good time for a nightcap so we trooped back to the Buddah Bar - however she and Beck did not finish them so Paul helped them out (not a great idea for the morning!).
We set off the next day to explore Fishermans Wharf - an area of piers and tourist attractions down near the docks. We got our first view of a San Fran Trolley car and saw some of the tourist attractions of the area. Managed to book us all on an evening tour of Alcatraz which lies a few miles off shore in the bay. We spent a good few hours in the local Aquarium as well oggling the local fish and sharks which live in the bay. An amazing sight was seeing the anchovies and sardines swirling around above your head in the tank, something which we had only seen on TV before! Lunch was in a local surf diner where we managed
to pick up a couple of logos for the Pembroke Posse before heading to the end of Pier 39 to see the Sea Lions. After the incident in NZ we were a little wary, but luckily they are a good distance away! The Sea Lions have made their home on some disused pontoons at the end of the dock and seem more than happy to have the tourists oggling at them. Wandered back up to Union Square passing a beggar who was hidden behind a couple of bushes. He was leering out at the unsuspecting punters trying to give them a scare and he certainly succeeded with us - seems you need to have an angle to make a few dollars here! Ended the day up at Union Square and made it into Macys (had to take a photo of this for Pen!). Found an amazing cafe there called the Cheesecake Factory which we have to try later on in the week. Dinner was in the diner next to the hotel which was OK for food, but really cool as it had a mini juke box next to all the tables where the diners could dial up their tunes -
cool!
Beck was not feeling at all well the next day so we did not join Sarah and Dave on the Biking Trip. The plan was to ride across the Golden Gate Bridge on Tandems and then up to Sausalito and explore that side of the bay before getting the ferry back. Sounded like they had a great time. We managed to get her some anti-biotics as the tummy bug is not getting better and then spent a few hours in the Golden Gate Park. Its a fairly big area and would need some kind of transport to see it properly but it was great to see another part of the city. Early evening was spent on a tour of Alcatraz. Its a short ferry hop across to "The Rock" and the tour was great if a bit busy - the place was fairly chilly and there was a good audio tour for you to follow with voice overs from some old convicts and guards so you really managed to get a feel for the place and some of the stories were amazing to hear. Definitely worth a visit if there is time and the night tour was excellent
as we got to see the San Fran profile all lit up.
The final full day in San Fran was spent catching up with some blogging and checking the e-mails before sending off Sarah and Dave to make their way back to the UK. In the afternoon we made it out to Sausalito on the Ferry. Its a really cute little town with lots of interesting shops and a few art galleries we could not afford stuff from! Dinner was at a great, low key Italian diner before going to the cinema to watch "The Queen". A good film to watch and interesting on the view it cast over that time.
With only a morning left in San Francisco we caught up with the travelblog - it had been difficult to keep it up to date when we were skiing so we are now a good 6 weeks behind. Ended up posting about 10 entries in one go oops! Then made it back to the cheesecake factory to pick something up for lunch - delicious and well worth it if you have time.
It was a really brief time we had in San Franciso, but both really
enjoyed it and got the feeling there was still a lot more to see. Somewhere to go back to at some point!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 71; dbt: 0.0467s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb