Day 2 - Seals and Torpedos

A real smorgasbord of activities today as we awake reasonably refreshed at 06:00. Having retired at 17:30 after updating the blog, I managed to get through until 23:00, 01:30, 03:15, 04:05, 06:00 whilst David tells me he slept through!

We use Skype to phone home using the complementary internet access at the Hotel (thanks CNA), the call quality is really clear and the call costs about 46p for the 20 minutes or so we are on. A second call is picked up by an answering machine and costs 6p for 30s (there is a connection charge in addition to the 1.4p per min call cost!

After the calls we head out to Louis Diner at the intersection of Sutter and Powell and enjoy a breakfast consisting of two pancakes, fresh cream, maple syrup, two eggs sunny side up, two sausage, bacon and has browns served with non stop Coffee and Coke-Cola.

Suitably sustained we take the short walk to Union square and pick buy day tickets for the Hop-On, Hop-Off San Francisco tour bus, which wends its way on a two hour tour of the city, with commentary.

The guide points out several movie locations as we pass them along with witty asides and historic facts. The bus soon arrives at Pier 33 (The Alcatraz ferry pier) where we alight and start to stroll towards Pier 39 (Fisherman’s Wharf).

The outlets and restaurants at the wharf don't open until 10:00 so its pretty quite, we take this opportunity to walk round and capture some scenic pictures in the relative quiet, snapping views of the wharf, Alcatraz island and the pier 39 seal colony.

From Fisherman’s wharf we head round to the Historic ships quay where we invest a total of $24 in an audio tour of the USS Pampanito, a world war II submarine responsible for the sinking of six Japanese vessels and the recovery of 83 Australian and British prisoners of war.

We explore a little further before returning to Pier 39 for a drink and then an abortive attempt to catch the bus at its next stop (which it doesn't) before finally getting aboard and travelling via the Presidio, Golden Gate bridge, Golden Gate Park before alighting at China town.

We walk back through China town to the Hotel via Westfield shopping centre where David invests in a Lakers baseball cap and sports shirt before stopping at the hotels attached Starbucks for a couple of iced drinks (Green tea and Coconut Mocha! - which earn us 10 free music downloads from iTunes-This apparently is a good thing)

A change of clothes at the Hotel (for something a little warmer) and we catch the tour bus again back to the wharf where we select the crab house as our eatery for dinner. David selects a modest Crab Ceaser salad with infinite tops ups of Fanta, whilst I take a cup of Crab chowder (large bowl) followed by the 'Killer crab' 1/2lb option – this consists of half a dozen crabs legs which require cracking on a garlic and anchovy sauce skillet, with a 'small' beer.

The food is delicious, particularly the Chowder, which I will get David to try at some point (maybe in a Sourdough – another speciality) and the bill with tip comes to $60. As we head out of the wharf we note the taxi queue is lengthy so we stroll a little soaking up the atmosphere in the rapidly cooling late afternoon.

Between 16:00 and 19:00 its happy hour, not the liquid kind but a kind that brings all sorts of street entertainers out, we pause and watch a couple and one particularly talented street artist, whom creates the most amazing pictures using aerosol tins of paint catches our eye and David ultimately invests in one of the pictures, which according to the artist will be worth a million dollars any time soon! (a snip then at the $10 asked).

Now we have a problem, insufficient ready cash for a cab and a reluctance to use a credit card in one, so we head off to Victorian Park 3 blocks down, where we join a queue for the cable car at its turning point.

The cable car ride is spectacular, as we climb the steep streets of San Francisco, pausing at the top of Lombard street before a jaw dropping descent down towards our stop at Union Square.

Here we take our leave of the cable car and have a short walk back to the Hotel, to make this entry and rest before tomorrows adventures – which will include an evening trip to the Rock!   

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