San Fran e-mail updates
June 8, 2007
Hello again!
Tired of my travel updates yet? Well, I promise you there will be several month drought after this trip. At least nothing major to report. I'll start be slightly recaping yesterday.
We ended up swapping rooms at the hotel because there was a wierd electrical buzzing all night and while I can sleep through pretty much anything it ended up keeping my mom up in the evening. Thus, they moved us to a spacious suite and even gave us a discount. The first thing we got was a 7-day Passport. This holy piece of public transport gives us unlimited rides on everything in the town except for the BART. Cable cars, street trams, buses, pretty much everything. It's totally worth it since a one-way ride costs $5 so if you sat on the cable car 4 ways it pretty much pays back the pass. My mom and I checked out the San Francisco shopping centre where there is a huge Sanrio store and we browsed Coach, Neiman Marcus & other places. My mom haggled for crochet scarves on the street outside before we caught a cable car to Fisherman's Wharf. O.k, tidbit of info to those going to travel here. DO NOT catch the cable car at the end of the line where there is a roundabout. It's a total waste of time. Just walk up a street and just run and hop onto the cable car when it makes a stop. It stops at almost every block anyway. Down at Fisherman's we bought seafood like crab, shrimp & chower and ate it on the bench. There was a drunk dude talking and singing to my mom and it was pretty funny. That always seems to happen to her. Same thing happened on the tube last year in London. Anyway, after this I caught the bus to Chesnut street since I heard there is a bunch of boutique shopping and there was but it wasn't very busy so it didn't give off a very shopping friendly atmosphere. It had the feel of Whyte ave with water dishes for dogs outside the stores but it wasn't nearly at busy. Following this we walked up to Union and looked through some shops there but I think my mom and I prefer larger shopping centres than boutiques. Then we hopped a bus and went back to Hyde street and we caught a cable car coming from Fisherman's back to downtown. We stopped at the Cable Car crossroad at California street and took the car that runs from east to west just to have a change of scenery and make the most of our passport. Anyway, we chilled at the hotel after taking the cable car back, walked Sak's 5th, got dinner and caught the musical "Jersey Boys" at the Curran theatre right across the street from out hotel. It was an amazing show. I think one of the best I have seen. I didn't really know what it was about, I thought it was just some dudes singing covers of popular songs and in a way it was but it was so much better than I expected. It pretty much told the story of how the Four Seasons formed from each of the point of views of the dudes in the group and they use the songs to chronicle checkpoints in their life. The staging was really cool and there was one point in which their backs were facing us and they were looking out with stage lights shining at them and it felt like the audience was in the backstage area. A total reversal. And they had really neat usage of these large t.v. screens that show cartoon snapshops sometimes and when they perform their big hits and are taped by a camera crew, the prop video camera shines the image of them singing right back on the screen as if you are watching them on t.v. It was a very cool perspective.
Today was pretty busy as well. I woke up early to catch a tour to the Muir Woods. This is the forests where the famous redwood trees reside and it was just really nice and refreshing to walk among these HUGE trees. It was a great atmosphere and it wasn't too busy so I could just enjoy the towering trees in the so-called Cathedral Grove. After this we were dropped off in Sausalito which is a small seaside town just across the way from San Fran. As soon as you cross the Golden Gate bridge you're pretty much there. I got a homemade burger that was prepared on a rotating grill and it was kind of fastfood style so you could watch the man as he worked. There were also a bunch of cute little stores here and the town just had a great pace to it. There are actually two downtowns. One for the locals and one for the tourists. The tourist one if way nicer since it is next to the ocean. Anyway, we were driven back into town and my mom and I got dropped off in Chinatown where we got soup noodles and congee. We walked the shops looking and marveling at how cheap the merchandise was going for before we got groceries again and caught the bus back to Union. We visited a few stores like Diesel and Lacoste but we got a call from my Auntie (not my real Aunt but you know how these Chinese titles are relative) Pearl who was coming to pick us up. She took us to Japan town and drove through Golden Gate park with us. We made a stop at the flower conservatory and drove around a few lakes which was very pretty. I saw a sign to a Carousel and I resolved to visit it the next time I come. I went to the one in NY and fell in love with it. I also resolved to bike across Golden Gate bridge. It looks like a ton of fun and pretty straightforward to do as well. Anybody want to come? Anyway, after the scenic drive with my Aunt we got coffee and went back to her place. Her house is so nice! I was expecting a very Chinese"ish" home with large fake flowers in large Chinese vases with a ton of photo frames everywhere but it was the complete opposite. It was this sleek, stainless steel, blue frosted glass home. I took some photos but it doesn't do it justice. There was just one thing that was out of the ordinary and it was two large golden Buddha fabric murals that were in a large golden frame. They were leaning against the wall and my Aunt told us how her husband wants to hang them downstairs but she won't let him. In the hallway upstairs there are three more similar murals propped up against the wall and she told him this was the only place they were allowed to be hung since nobody would see them. It seemed like similar conversations I have heard before....anyway, she showed us all her gizmos like how she uses a palm pilot looking device to control her t.v. and karoke machine. Her husband came home and we all went out to a fantastic dinner at a Italian restaurant in their area. They know the restaurant people really well and my Uncle Roland walked freely into the kitchen to greet his friends. It seems like he has friends everywhere. Even the murals in his home were given to him by his friends in Tibet. So we had dinner and they were so lovely as to drive us back to our hotel. I convinced my mom to do a Cable Car round since I wanted to see the city lights and it was a ton of fun. I ended up hanging off the side at the very front and it pretty much felt like a rollercoaster going down the steep hills. It was a bit cold but totally worth it.
Well, that's it. Hope you enjoyed!
Tired of my travel updates yet? Well, I promise you there will be several month drought after this trip. At least nothing major to report. I'll start be slightly recaping yesterday.
We ended up swapping rooms at the hotel because there was a wierd electrical buzzing all night and while I can sleep through pretty much anything it ended up keeping my mom up in the evening. Thus, they moved us to a spacious suite and even gave us a discount. The first thing we got was a 7-day Passport. This holy piece of public transport gives us unlimited rides on everything in the town except for the BART. Cable cars, street trams, buses, pretty much everything. It's totally worth it since a one-way ride costs $5 so if you sat on the cable car 4 ways it pretty much pays back the pass. My mom and I checked out the San Francisco shopping centre where there is a huge Sanrio store and we browsed Coach, Neiman Marcus & other places. My mom haggled for crochet scarves on the street outside before we caught a cable car to Fisherman's Wharf. O.k, tidbit of info to those going to travel here. DO NOT catch the cable car at the end of the line where there is a roundabout. It's a total waste of time. Just walk up a street and just run and hop onto the cable car when it makes a stop. It stops at almost every block anyway. Down at Fisherman's we bought seafood like crab, shrimp & chower and ate it on the bench. There was a drunk dude talking and singing to my mom and it was pretty funny. That always seems to happen to her. Same thing happened on the tube last year in London. Anyway, after this I caught the bus to Chesnut street since I heard there is a bunch of boutique shopping and there was but it wasn't very busy so it didn't give off a very shopping friendly atmosphere. It had the feel of Whyte ave with water dishes for dogs outside the stores but it wasn't nearly at busy. Following this we walked up to Union and looked through some shops there but I think my mom and I prefer larger shopping centres than boutiques. Then we hopped a bus and went back to Hyde street and we caught a cable car coming from Fisherman's back to downtown. We stopped at the Cable Car crossroad at California street and took the car that runs from east to west just to have a change of scenery and make the most of our passport. Anyway, we chilled at the hotel after taking the cable car back, walked Sak's 5th, got dinner and caught the musical "Jersey Boys" at the Curran theatre right across the street from out hotel. It was an amazing show. I think one of the best I have seen. I didn't really know what it was about, I thought it was just some dudes singing covers of popular songs and in a way it was but it was so much better than I expected. It pretty much told the story of how the Four Seasons formed from each of the point of views of the dudes in the group and they use the songs to chronicle checkpoints in their life. The staging was really cool and there was one point in which their backs were facing us and they were looking out with stage lights shining at them and it felt like the audience was in the backstage area. A total reversal. And they had really neat usage of these large t.v. screens that show cartoon snapshops sometimes and when they perform their big hits and are taped by a camera crew, the prop video camera shines the image of them singing right back on the screen as if you are watching them on t.v. It was a very cool perspective.
Today was pretty busy as well. I woke up early to catch a tour to the Muir Woods. This is the forests where the famous redwood trees reside and it was just really nice and refreshing to walk among these HUGE trees. It was a great atmosphere and it wasn't too busy so I could just enjoy the towering trees in the so-called Cathedral Grove. After this we were dropped off in Sausalito which is a small seaside town just across the way from San Fran. As soon as you cross the Golden Gate bridge you're pretty much there. I got a homemade burger that was prepared on a rotating grill and it was kind of fastfood style so you could watch the man as he worked. There were also a bunch of cute little stores here and the town just had a great pace to it. There are actually two downtowns. One for the locals and one for the tourists. The tourist one if way nicer since it is next to the ocean. Anyway, we were driven back into town and my mom and I got dropped off in Chinatown where we got soup noodles and congee. We walked the shops looking and marveling at how cheap the merchandise was going for before we got groceries again and caught the bus back to Union. We visited a few stores like Diesel and Lacoste but we got a call from my Auntie (not my real Aunt but you know how these Chinese titles are relative) Pearl who was coming to pick us up. She took us to Japan town and drove through Golden Gate park with us. We made a stop at the flower conservatory and drove around a few lakes which was very pretty. I saw a sign to a Carousel and I resolved to visit it the next time I come. I went to the one in NY and fell in love with it. I also resolved to bike across Golden Gate bridge. It looks like a ton of fun and pretty straightforward to do as well. Anybody want to come? Anyway, after the scenic drive with my Aunt we got coffee and went back to her place. Her house is so nice! I was expecting a very Chinese"ish" home with large fake flowers in large Chinese vases with a ton of photo frames everywhere but it was the complete opposite. It was this sleek, stainless steel, blue frosted glass home. I took some photos but it doesn't do it justice. There was just one thing that was out of the ordinary and it was two large golden Buddha fabric murals that were in a large golden frame. They were leaning against the wall and my Aunt told us how her husband wants to hang them downstairs but she won't let him. In the hallway upstairs there are three more similar murals propped up against the wall and she told him this was the only place they were allowed to be hung since nobody would see them. It seemed like similar conversations I have heard before....anyway, she showed us all her gizmos like how she uses a palm pilot looking device to control her t.v. and karoke machine. Her husband came home and we all went out to a fantastic dinner at a Italian restaurant in their area. They know the restaurant people really well and my Uncle Roland walked freely into the kitchen to greet his friends. It seems like he has friends everywhere. Even the murals in his home were given to him by his friends in Tibet. So we had dinner and they were so lovely as to drive us back to our hotel. I convinced my mom to do a Cable Car round since I wanted to see the city lights and it was a ton of fun. I ended up hanging off the side at the very front and it pretty much felt like a rollercoaster going down the steep hills. It was a bit cold but totally worth it.
Well, that's it. Hope you enjoyed!
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