Under the Bridge

One of my son's Christmas wishes was to go to San Francisco and see the Golden Gate Bridge. His parents, not minding to go to San Francisco at any time, decided to do it during the first week of the New Year. Since we spent most of the New Year's Day at Grandma's house in Santa Cruz, it was very late by the time we rolled into San Francisco. After checking into our hotel room, we all went straight to bed.

Although my son had been to San Francisco for more than a several times, he had never done his own sightseeing because either he was too young, or he was always forced to go to the places where the grown-ups wanted to go.

This time, however, it was HE, who led the trip. The first item on the itinerary: a cable car ride. You need to cover the basics. We walked down on Powell St. to the cable car stop. Boy, there were long lines! One for the ticket booth, and another for cable cars. We had to wait for five or six cars before it was our turn to get on. It was a long wait, but I must say I enjoyed the ride. I could tell that my son was into it, too. He is usually a very talkative guy, but he barely talked during the ride, being busy looking out at the changing sceneries.  Slowly we went up and down the hills, through different neighborhoods, all the way down to the Fisherman's Wharf.

The Fisherman's Wharf. Wonder when the last time I came here was. It was definitely more than ten years ago. ..  Sniffing the steam drifting from crab stands, we walked to the Pier 43 1/2 (Forty three and a half). I didn't realize that the piers come in halves. This is one of the piers for the boat rides around the bay. We bought tickets for a 60-min ride which goes under the Golden Gate Bridge, and since we had some time before boarding, we had a light lunch at a nearby bakery.

Red and White Fleet was the name of the boat company. It is one of those boat rides that a lady with a camera is waiting for you by the boat to take your "pre-boarding" picture as you get on (Who buys those pictures, anyway?). And, once you step into the boat, they'll give you a headset  for an audio guide. My husband and I put on the headsets, looked each other, and chuckled. It is fun to do touristy things sometimes! My son, on the other hand, didn't want to have anything to do with the headset.

The ride is sixty minutes long. After leaving the pier, it goes straight to the Golden Gate Bridge, go under the bridge, turn around, and come back after circling around the Alcatraz Island. Although it was rather a chilly day, we were standing on the deck trying to capture the bridge as we approached it. By the time we went under the bridge, everyone on board was on the deck, taking close-up pictures of this seventy-year-old bridge. Judging from the number of the languages that I noticed, there seemed to be tourists from all over the world on the boat. Come to think of it, it is kind of funny that a bridge has become such a huge tourist attraction. I mean, it is a magnificent bridge. Its bright orange color (they call it "international orange") and being a symbol of the city and all, the bridge is quite amazing. But I somehow felt funny, as we went under the bridge, watching all these people (including myself) frantically taking pictures of the bottom of this massive steel structure. ..

Now that we saw the bridge, we went inside of the boat and stayed warm for the rest of the ride. I lazily watched Angel Island and Alcatraz Island go by, while listening to the audio guide (to my surprise, it was quite informative). I enjoyed the ride more than I expected. My son, of course, was thrilled to see the bridge up close. :) Stepping out of the boat, we were greeted with a bunch of "pre-boarding" photos pinned up on the board. We didn't buy it. It was expensive, and I looked awful in it.

Leaving the pier, we took a street car to go back to hotel. It was still mid-afternoon, but you cannot put too much into a day when you have a little kid on tow. As the evening approaches, it started to get windy. The weather lady on TV had been warning us that a big storm would come to the area. The storm was supposed to bring "heavy rain and very strong wind".   Since it was such a beautiful sunny day, I was hoping that the forecast would be wrong, but as I see thick clouds coming in, I realized that the storm was indeed coming to town.  We went to a Thai restaurant across the street for dinner. I am usually happy with Thai food restaurants wherever I eat, but this one was, um...,  disappointing.  Hmmm.. :(