SHERRY

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

USA (part 4) - San Francisco

We didn't really have a very detailed itinerary or highlights of places to go in San Francisco. Mainly just walking around the city, shopping, the Golden Gate Bridge and maybe a cruise around the bay.

After we checked in our hotel, it's already evening and we took a walk around the area. While walking along the streets, we saw many trams. It's cute and it makes the city more interesting. My boyfriend loves trams, and he's wondering why are there no tram service in Singapore -.-

The next day, we finally got the chance to take the tram to Fisherman's Wharf.

So squeezy in the tram -.-

After around 20 minutes, we arrived at Fisherman's Wharf and we bought the Wharfpass. It's a great deal and it includes most of the must-do activities at San Francisco. This saved us a lot of trouble in researching where to go and what to do at San Francisco. If you are planning to go SF, I would recommend getting a Wharfpass, the details can be found at this website.www.wharfpass.com

First, with the Wharfpass, we took the Red & White Fleet cruise around the bay. We were given an audio guide and as the cruise passed through some attraction, the audio guide would describe it's background. The cruise journey was 1 hour and we passed through the Golden Gate Bridge. We also saw Alcatraz while we were on the cruise. We were lucky that the weather was great that day and the views were stunning.

The Red & White Fleet

Alcatraz Island

Stunning views with nice weather taken from the cruise

Next, we took the City Sight Seeing Tour. We were seating in a tram-like bus to tour around the city.

Our city tour bus..

Inside of the bus..

Along the city tour, we were able to see the nicely arranged house of SF on the slope. The tour also brought us to see some very beautifully designed mansions built on the slope that belonged to those rich men staying in SF. We didn't manage to take pictures of those mansions as the bus was moving when we passed by. The bus then drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to the other side of SF, where we stopped for a 15 minutes break to take some pictures.

Our next stop included in the Wharfpass is the Boudin Sourdough Bread Bakery Tour and Museum. It's just a bakery shop on the inside, but once you showed your Wharfpass and went in, it's a small museum introducing the history of sourdough bread and how it was made.

Another attraction included in the Wharfpass is a choice between the Wax Museum or Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum. We choose the latter. It's quite a small museum and we were done in half an hour. It's quite dark inside and our camera wasn't able to take good photos in there. Okay, yes.. Time to invest in a camera.

That's all the activities we did with our Wharfpass. There's actually 2 more attractions, the aquarium and a cable car ride but we gave them a miss as the time was running late and they were closed by the time we reached there.

Another fun thing we did in SF was Go Car.. The car was half the size of a normal car and only 2 persons to each car. While we were riding it on the road, we looked so tiny among the other cars! Helmets were provided and we must wear it while we were on the road. The experience was cute, funny and fun! It was guided with GPS so you dun have to worry about losing your way. The rental rate was quite expensive. But it's too cute that we dun mind paying for that experience. Haha. If you would like to try this out at SF, here's the address.
Address: 321 Mason St, San Francisco.

Cutie Go Car!

After Go Car, it's time to get some dinner. Came across Osha Thai Restaurant and Bar. We were craving for some Asian food and we didn't make the wrong choice! They served really yummy Thai food, especially the red curry!
Address: 149 2nd street, San Francisco. It's at the financial district.

Osha Thai Restaurant and Bar

Starter

The red curry, slurp slurp..

Green curry.. Haha.. We ordered different colored curries!

The next day, we set off to look for The Codmother Fish and Chips as we had heard positive reviews of it. We had a hard time looking for it as it's not the typical restaurant or cafe, it's a food-truck set up along the road side with limited seating and no shelter. Hmm.. I wonder if their business would be greatly affected during rainy seasons. Nonetheless, they served really yummy fish and chips, and it's really cod fish! It's cheap and the portion is big. Thumbs up for the tasty food and it's value for money.. A must try if you are in SF.

Address: 2824 Jones Street, San Francisco.

The stall

Our fish and chips. 2 of us couldn't finish one portion! Our appetite too small la.

When we were in SF, we decided to try In and Out Burger. It's not available in Singapore and our friends had recommended that we should give it a try when we were in US. And it was one of the best burgers I've ever eaten! Definitely beat MacDonald Uncle. I thought it was lucky that Singapore does not have In and Out Burger, otherwise, I will be taking in a lot more extra calories. But I do miss the taste of the burger. Yum yum.

On the last night of our trip, we went to Cliff House, a restaurant situated on the headland above the cliffs of Pacific Ocean. It was a fine dining restaurant, not considered cheap but the food was quite good and the ambience and views were definitely great. Since it was a fine dining restaurant, the portion was quite small, so dun expect the portion to be the same as other US cafe or restaurant. This place is recommended if you have extra budget to spare and would like to enjoy great views of the Pacific Ocean.

Address: 1090 Point Lobos Ave, San Francisco

The Cliff House

Super fresh and juicy raw oyster

Smoked duck, tasted nice too.

Prawns and scallops. It's fresh and tasty.

Chocolate souffle with ice cream. There's melted chocolate oozing out of the chocolate cake. It's the type that I loved.. Slurp!

Creme Brulee. Nice too.

It was already dark when we finished our dinner.. We strolled to the beach and the wind was chilly. The ocean was so big that I couldn't see an end to it. I love the feeling of looking into the vast ocean and listening to the sound of the waves. It was our last night in San Francisco, last night of our trip, I definitely didn't want it to end. The thought of going back to Singapore, going back to the kind of life that I am reluctant to lead made me feel sad. The emotions were especially strong in such a setting, and I cried. Okay, my boyfriend was stunned again, and he consoled me until.. er.. some police cars arrived at the beach with loud siren -.- That was such a spoiler! The police were here to stop a group of people on the beach some distance away from us who had set up a fireplace to warm themselves. Okay, that stopped my emotions and we head back to hotel.

SF's really nice. There are no fun theme park in SF (or rather we did not go to any), neither is it a peaceful town, nor the best place for shopping. But somehow we just love the place. Maybe because it's well organised? Because it has tram service? Or is it because of its proximity to the vast Pacific Ocean? Or many many other reasons? We really dunno. We only know we love SF.