Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
I arrived in San Francisco after a 3 or 4 hour journey from Yosemite. The weather was typically sunny for the journey down and the sun was still out in force when I arrived in the city. The coach driver for the last part of the journey was one of those tiresome know it all types and loved the sound of his own voice so I was glad to get off the coach and start walking!
I found my hostel quite easily as it was situated near Union Square in the heart of the downtown area. A good little place, only $20 a night, nice and clean but the rooms are a little cramped. At this point in the game I'm getting tired of sharing cramped spaces with other people and cant wait to sleep on my own in my own bedroom! Still, best not to wish my time away.. My hostel is over the road from its sister hostel which has all the kitchen facilities there so if you want to cook you have to go down the street to do so. As my place is more of a hotel it doesnt have the facilities that the other place does.
There was still a lot of the day left so I went for a wander to get my bearings. As with all the other cities I've visited San Fran is sprawling and takes a few days to work out the layout. I called into the nearby Levi's store in Union Square and managed to pick up a cracking pair of jeans for $40, bargain! It'd be rude not to buy a pair at that price! That evening as I had to use up the food that I had brought with me from Yosemite I dined on ham sandwiches with BBQ sauce - quite bland for an evening meal!
The following morning I was ready to see more of the city so I headed out, took a walk up through Chinatown and into the Italian district of the city that it leads on to. From there I headed up to Lombard Street, more well known as the 'crookedest street in the world'. It was a bit of a climb from the bottom of the street as I had expected being San Francisco and all. From the top of Lombard Street looking right you can see down into the bay and Alcatraz in the distance. I walked from there down the hill toward Fishermans Wharf which is full of souvenir shops, seafood restaurants and Pier 39 which is famous for its sea lions which lay around basking in the sun on wooden decks. Whilst I was down there I stumbled across a museum of old penny arcade machines, some of them 70 or 80 years old or more. Obviously they arent a penny anymore but they're all in fully working order. They also had some vintage arcade machines including a Pac Man machine with the screen on the table top. I want one for my living room! I also had a look around a spy shop that sold all kinds of surveillance equipment presumably to paranoid security fanatics that want to keep tabs on their families/neighbours/employees. Some of the stuff they had in there was unreal, things that I thought existed only in James Bond films.
On my way back I walked past Levi's Plaza which is the HQ for Levi Strauss jeans. All I wear is Levi's so I stopped and had a peek in their museum which was quite interesting. That evening I went to the cinema to watch the remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street which I was pretty impressed with to be fair despite my concerns about the remake being a poor effort as a lot of remakes often are. Afterward I headed back as I'd had enough for one day.
The next morning I got up, grabbed my free breakfast at the other hostel (a good breakfast it is too, bagels, muffins, jam, fruit, coffee etc) and afterward caught the bus up to the Haight Ashbury district of San Fran which is famous for the large hippie scene that thrived there in the late 1960's. The vibe around there is still largely a hippie one and you can smell the weed in the air wherever you go up there! It has tons of smoke/head shops as well as loads of cool clothes shops and all kinds of other shops selling all kinds of stuff. One shop that stands out up there is Amoeba records which has to be one of the largest independent record shops I've ever been to! Every genre of music you can think of, tons of vinyl as well as DVD's, games and other music merchandise. I spent nearly 3 hours in there just thumbing through stuff! I needed some fresh air after so long indoors so headed through Golden Gate Park for a walk. On my way through, as I'd expected in Haight Ashbury, I had every man and his dog trying to sell me weed, ha ha. I think the cops turn a blind eye to it round there.. That evening I had a pizza craving and had to satisfy the urge so had a Dominos which hit the spot :)
On my 3rd day in the city I did the Alcatraz tour which took up most of the day. I'd already visited two former prisons in Oz but couldnt miss out on The Rock! I caught the boat over there at 11am from the waterfront and after doing a short tour with one of their guides about the various escape stories from years gone by, I grabbed a headset and did the self guided audio tour which leads you around the various parts of the prison buildings and fills you in on little nuggets of history about the place as you go along. Part of the island is closed off seasonally as it's a nesting ground for lots of different birds including loads of seagulls. I didnt fancy having my eyeballs pecked out so I kept my distance from the areas which they were infesting! ha ha
After getting plenty of pics of Alcatraz and the different buildings on the island I checked the time and found that it was nearly 4.30pm! I'd managed to spend most of the day just walking around the place. Not much time left to bother doing much else I thought so I headed back to the hostel and cooked my evening meal. As luck would have it they laid on 15-20 bottles of free wine between everybody which didnt last long! A few drinks later I called it a night, all this tourism is tiring stuff.
Next morning I was up and out early to catch the matinee showing of Iron Man 2, I'd been looking forward to it for ages and went to the early showing as it was only $6! Top film. Afterward I went back up to Haight Ashbury to have a look around some of the shops I had missed the last time I was up there. I passed through Golden Gate Park again and completely lost my bearings and ended up over the other side where I hadnt planned to end up. The place isnt that well signposted which doesnt help matters. Then I decided to head to see the Goldent Gate bridge as it's one of San Frans more famous landmarks that I havent yet seen. I walked a good hour or so from Golden Gate Park through a swanky looking neighbourhood and through The Presidio which is a former US army base. With the sun rapidly going down and just as I thought I'd made it I came out of the other side of the Presidio and found a large freeway in front of me that didnt have a clear way around it. I gave up on trying to see the bridge that day as I was knackered and bored of walking! I caught the bus back downtown and had dinner at the hostel where I got chatting to a bunch of folks around the table. The hostel organised a pub crawl that evening which everyone was well up for seeing as it was a Friday night and all.
We headed out to 4 or 5 different bars (none of which I can recall the names of) and got pretty sauced. After a 2am slice of pizza I called it a night. I must have drank more than I realised as I spent a lot of the next morning in bed feeling rough! Nothing a greasy fry-up cant sort out. I went out and had a nice helping of eggs, fried potatoes and sausages washed down with a cup of coffee and I was back on fighting form! I spent the rest of the day looking around the shops all over town for a nice tshirt. Being fussy like I am I didnt find anything that really leapt out so the day was a bit of a non event!
On the Sunday I wanted to feed my inner big kid so I caught the train out to a waterpark in nearby Concord which is about a 90 min journey from San Fran adding train time and walking together. The weather was a bit sketchy to begin with, cloudy, rainy and cold but I decided to wing it and hope for the best seeing as the park wasnt yet fully open and as such was only open on weekends until the summer kicks in. I got all the way there, got caught in the rain after I got off the train and found that the park was dead. I should have known as much! Just looking at the water fountains in the park made me feel cold so I decided against paying to be freezing cold and wet and caught the train back. What a waste of time that was! In the evening I headed out to a rock bar with some folks from the hostel for a couple of drinks and then a little Thai food on the way home before bed.
Today, its just rained heavily for most of the day and been really cold so I havent ventured out and have instead opted to sit here and write reams and reams of text. Again! ha ha
I still have 4 days in San Fran left so will fill you in on the rest next time, bye!
- comments
Donna Another riveting read,Ry. I could feel the atmosphere and almost smell the food!