San Francisco

Well here we are in San Francisco. We arrived safe and sound after an average flight. No issues at immigration but our fingerprints and photos are now permanently on record.

It’s a pretty city but it doesn’t really have a centre. It’s spread out over the hills and has lots of little quarters. Cable cars are a godsend for getting from A to B (ding-ding!). Fisherman’s Wharf is the sort of small scaled touristy streets that you might be looking for.

The first half day was spent familiarising ourselves with the city and getting some fresh air, yesterday was museums, China Town, Lombard St (the crookedest street) and lots of walking. Today we cycled over the Golden Gate Bridge and down to Sausalito. Very pretty and quite a good ride. We caught the ferry home though... It’s been blowing like stink since we got here.

We’re off to the East Coast tomorrow and straight up to our learn to coach course the day after! We plan to post something here after each city/town we visit so stay tuned and we hope you enjoy the photos. In the mean time, here’s a quick summary of what we’ve been up to.

M+S

Architectural highlight (and total museum/gallery visits):
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by Mario Botta. Very PoMo and perhaps showing its age but a good gallery space. A close second would be the villas here (so many bay windows). Missed Herzog and DeMeuron’s new building (too far out of town).

Total museum and gallery visits = 2

Shopping highlight (and total clothes purchases):
The prices. One dress spotted at Niemen Marcus was US$14,000. We didn’t buy one. There are so many black strappy shoes and yet none of them seem to be quite right.

Total clothes purchases = 0

Lessons learnt:
Never trust the photos that hostels put on their websites. They don’t show the fact that you’re down the end of a grotty alleyway past the knock shop.

Fear Factor:
7/10 We haven’t got much to compare it with yet but there are dodgy parts of town and some desperate looking people. Otherwise the locals have been really friendly.

Funniest moment:
The guy who hides behind some broken off branches down near Fisherman’s Wharf and scares people walking by. No matter how many times he does it, it’s still funny.

Close runners up are sitting in a 350+ seat movie theatre with 12 other people watching Shrek the Third and running into Rob the 420 sailor from Wellington (from the young ones for those who know them) riding a bike over the Golden Gate Bridge.

Total number of Thai meals so far:
Zero!