Travelling the USA | San Francisco, CA
- Simon-Peter Lincoln
- Sep 19, 2016
- 7 min read
Thursday 15th September
Our flight was super short, just over an hour in total from Las Vegas to San Francisco, I only got to watch the last quarter of the Jets vs Bills football game and a bit of Jimmy Fallon before we landed at SFO. As we got off the plane, we managed to get our bags pretty quickly and headed to the taxi area. San Francisco is a weird climate, even though it's in California it was super cold (I'm glad I brought a coat!). A Lyft car here was $50, but we had to bite the bullet and order one to take us to our AirBnb. We were staying the heart of Chinatown, super close to the hustle and bustle of San Fran. We arrived at a small back street that looked pretty ominous and dark but after contacting Tu (our AirBnb host), we found our way to the place and it was great! It was almost like a hostel. After (what felt like) a long day, we didn't do anything when we got in, just dropped our bags, got in bed and fell asleep.
Friday 16th September
We were up around 9am today as we wanted to see as much as San Francisco as we could (we only have a couple of days here), so we put on our warmest clothes and headed out towards Fisherman's Wharf. On the way, we decided to stop at Lombard street, which is famed for it's ridiculously windy road. The road was super steep, but we made our way to the top, took our photographs and headed back down; however, I'll add that San Francisco is beautiful and from the top of Lombard, you could see a lot of the city. It's something you have to see in San Fran, however it is full of tourists like me who want to grab a million photos. We shot back down the road (easier than going up!) and headed towards Fisherman's Wharf. As you arrive at the Wharf, you automatically know you're in a tourist desitination, with everyother shop being either a gift shop or a restaurant. After a mooch around the shops, we took a walk over to Pier 39 and saw the sea lions relaxing on the docks; they're amazing animals and always look like they're just chilling out without a care in the world. From here, we also managed to get some great photos of Alcatraz before heading through the shopping centre of the pier and towards the food. On our way we stopped to watch an amazing street performer who played the guitar, bass, keys, drums and sang all at the same time. He went by the stage name Lone Sound Ranger and was super talented; he's setting up a real show in San Fran, so if you ever stumble across that, definitely check it out! We eventually arrived at Sabella & LaTorre's and I ordered the Manhattan Clam Chowder. I'm not really a sea-food fan, but this was incredible. It was a tomato based dish and served in a bread bowl, the sea-food in it reminded me of mussells (I love mussells) and it was ridiculously cheap; the meal came to $9.79 each!. I'm sure all the restaurants in the area are brilliant but I would definitely recommend this place!
From here, we decided to take a walk to the San Fran's most famous monument (after Steph Curry), the Golden Gate bridge. It took us quite a while to get here as we were ridiculously far away, but the walk could've been worse. The whole trek was by the sea and we got to see people playing their sports and enjoying the beautiful day. Eventually, we made it to our destination and it was like looking at a picture. There were masses of people with the same idea as us, so we grabbed our photos at every possible opportunity. Structures like this amaze me and I think about the man power that went into designing and assembling it. We walked a part of the way over the bridge before decided to turn and make our way back into the city. As we got closer to the centre, we decided to stop to buy a few groceries in a supermarket and went for ice cream in Ghirardellis. Apparently this place is famous, so we went in and I ordered a chocolate brownie sundae for $13! Now, the sundae was great, but I can't help feeling that it wasn't worth the money I paid for it. I could've easily got the same thing in England for about £6, which is disappointing, but I guess we paid for the name. By now we were all shattered, the long walk had taken it out of us, so we left the ice cream place and headed back to the AirBnb to shower and sleep.
Saturday 17th September
Today was a bit of a different day as I was going to spend it on my own. Bethan and Emma had booked themselves onto a whale-watching tour (which I couldn't afford unfortunately) and Heather decided to use the day to pack her things and get ready to go back to England tomorrow. I took the opportunity of being alone to do some walking and see the city in my own time. Before I had figured out anything to see or do, I took a walk down to Firsherman's Wharf and Pier 39 to see what was going on and to see if I had missed anything the day before; however, I didn't stay here very long as I decided to take a walk up to the Painted Ladies and Haight-Ashbury. The walk from Fisherman's Wharf was quite grueling as pretty much all of San Francisco is on hills and they're not small! I'd taken a jacket as I'd heard it can get really cold here, but after the first hill, it was in my backpack and I was sweating... bad. The walk to the Painted Ladies took about an hour, but I'd stopped along the way in a local park for something to eat so it was more like an hour and a half, but it was such a beautiful hike. All the buildings in San Fran are incredibly grand and old and remind me of old movies. The Painted Ladies are a row of different coloured houses that are more or less identical and they featured on the opening credits of the sitcom, Full House; they 100% represent San Fran and attract a lot of tourists. Eventually, I arrived at the Ladies and it was an odd feeling, a crowd of people were stood on a banking across the road taking photos of these homes. Now, the colour of the houses had faded over the years so it isn't as prolific as they once were, but the houses were gorgeous and I felt like I'd been taken to the 1960s; especially when a VW camper drove by as I was taking a photograph.
The next stop on my one-man-tour was Haight-Ashbury. I'd read about this place on a blog and it seemed like my cup of tea; it's a street which is home to the most eclectic group of people and stores. The 1960's theme continued as I got to the street, the hippy movement was very much still alive here, there was tie-dye and bandanas as far as the eye could see. Haight-Ashbury astounded me though, it was so surreal to be there but so enjoyable; every store was independantly run and looked so unique and querky. Apart from the odd Ben & Jerrys or McDonalds, every other place was a record store, a Tibetan store or a thrift/vintage store. It was amazing and I would definitely recommend this place to anyone who is into that sort of thing; it's a little like Camden (London) in a sense as everyone has their own style and can be who they want to be without fearing persecution (who wants to be the same as everyone else anyways?). I bought a nice t-shirt from the Goodwill, but apart from that, I didn't need to spend any money as I was just happy being there, the atmosphere was amazing.
Eventually, the girls got back in touch after their whale-watching and I headed back to the AirBnb. After getting lost in the centre of San Francisco, I made it back and we all headed out for Chinese food. Being so close to Chinatown was handy as we had a plethora of options, but Emma recommended a small restaurant she'd been to before called New Woey Loy Goey. I've always found that if Chinese people are eating in a Chinese resaturant, it's likely to be authentic (same goes with anyone, i.e. Indians in an Indian restaurant, etc.), so I was excited to see what the options were. We were greeted with complimentary green tea and after reading the menu, I settled on beef in oyster sauce with fried rice and it was incredible. There was so much flavour and the portion size was a lot more than expected, all for the little price of $6.95! The atomosphere in the place was awesome and we had such a good time there.
After finishing up, we headed over to Emma's friends house for some drinks and to watch the football game and we pretty much saw the night out here, before heading back to get some sleep for the long day tomorrow.
Overall, I really liked San Francisco, it had a unique and diverse vibe to it that was very refereshing. I would definitely recommend visiting Haight-Ashbury and you have to see the Golden Gate obviously. There is so much more I wish I could've done, and if I come back, I will make sure to stay a lot longer to really take in the city and see all the sites I missed, like Muir Woods (home of the huge redwood trees). The only downside to San Fran is that there are a lot of homeless people living there, which is sad and a shame that the government don't do enough to help them and to curb homelessness and issues that have resulted in these people becoming homeless.
Comments