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Today was a day for the history books!!! The 2008 Olympic Torch Relay was in San Francisco!!! This year, San Francisco is the only North American city to host the olympic Torch during the worldwide Relay to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. There was a lot of uproar and upset over Beijing hosting the Olympics, and the whole Tibet independance malarcky etc... so, the route of the relay was baricaded with crowd barriers, and a very high police presence. The route was televised on the news the night before, and that morning, and I left to go and view the relay at around 12h30. The relay was meant to start at 1pm and finish at 3pm. All over town, I saw protestors with flags etc, but couldn't find the relay anywhere... Eventually I found a police man who could talk to me, and he said that due to all the unrest, the route had been changed at the last minute, and not even they knew where it had gone. The relay runners had all been whisked off in a huge truck, and disappeared!!! Oh well!!! I then made my way down to the Justin Herman Plaza, where the relay was meant to end, to see if I could get a glimps of it!!! Who was I kidding!!! There were throngs of rioters and protesters, and even 2 guys who thought they'd make a bigger statement by protesting NAKED!!! OMG!!! Check out the photos!!! Only in America I guess!! Eventually the police arrived and dispersed the crowds, and announced that the torch wasn't coming, and that everybody should go home...
I then made my way to Pier 39, and walked down the length of The Embarcadero from the Herman Plaza!! Quite a walk, but very nice along the esplanade. At Pier 39, there were loads of shops and restuarants. I was enticed over to the 'Hawaiian Pearl Factory' store, where they had oysters in a bucket of water, you choose your oyster, tap it 3 times with the wooden tongs, and then they all shout "Aloha" ~ to welcome the pearl!!! I got a beautiful white pearl. Great business women these women were... she then talked me into setting my pearl into either a ring, or pendant... I eventually decided on a set of pearl earings!! So I had to do another oyster :) My luck, I get a black oyster in my next pearl, and couldn't have one white and one black earing, so I made a deal with her, and she gave me another white pearl, and I got the set of earings, and the black pearl set in a pendant!! Very happy with my purchases!!! Check out the photos
I stopped at the Crepe house, and had a chicken crepe for my late lunch/dinner, and then I had a Nutella crepe for my dessert :) I made my way back home that evening, after having walked about 20kms all over the city all day, and my feet were throbbing!!!
The next day I had my city tour booked with an early start, so I had a shower and went to bed around 10.30pm
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