Back to San Francisco!

The bus ride back from Lake Tahoe was an interesting experience, as many interesting people were on board. It really got me thinking about the lower class of people in the United States. I passed through Sacramento (the capital of California) and checked in at another Hostelling International for the night. This time though, I was in a room of 24 people. They were probably all like-minded tourists after a hard day, and it took a little bit of time falling asleep amongst the snoring symphony that was occurring. The next morning at the hostel, I met a person who had been living in various Hostelling Internationals around the country for the past 10 years, and also a group of South Koreans on a trip to America. This hostel was very reliable and housed a friendly atmosphere, with many groups from around the world (like a Scottish high school band and an English theatre group).

I left very early to make the most of the one day I had left to see the rest of San Francisco. SF is renowned for an incredibly efficient public transport system, making it very easy to travel from A to B. I took the very cheap BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) from SF to Berkeley, which was located inland across the San Francisco Bay. This train took me through an underwater railway system to the city of Berkeley, famous of course for the University of California, Berkeley. UCB is University of California's first campus and UC's highest ranked campus overall. Its reputation and prestige urged me to take a walk around the entire institution that morning. The buildings, monuments and gardens were all beautiful. The people I saw on campus looked and seemed very scholarly, and from who I saw, I could attest to the fact that hippie culture was quite prevalent. Both the campus and the city were very nice indeed.


Train and bus hopping never felt so good, as I efficiently found myself back in Fisherman's Wharf. I then took a one hour Golden Gate Bay Cruise which looped us under the Golden Gate Bridge, and around Alcatraz Island. The on-board narrative that was given through headphones was very informative. Alcatraz Island was the place that the US army established as a fort to guard the bay until it became a military prison, home to many world famous inmates such as Al Capone ("Scarface") and the Anglin Brothers.


After another scrumptious seafood lunch, I walked through the city until I reached Lombard Street. This street is famous for being the crookedest street in the world. Seeing cars drive down was entertaining (we actually drove down it too, on Sunday night). Cars go down at a max speed of 8 km/h! San Francisco was built on steep hills (extreme cases are pretty much 45 degrees), so the roads were way steeper than the hilly roads of Auckland.


I continued walking until I reached Japantown, which was not as culturally intense as Chinatown, but still consisted of many unique shops from Japan. There were also many Korean shops and restaurants that I could see, to the extent that it could almost be called a mini-Koreatown as well.


I reached the neighbourhood of Pacific Heights, where many fine Victorian houses lined the streets. Many films such as "Mrs Doubtfire" (a classic!) are known to have been filmed in this district. In fact, Robin Williams is known to have a house here, along with many other celebrities. The view at Alamo Square is very famous, as old-style Victorian houses are juxtaposed against the backdrop of downtown SF's modern-style skyline. These houses are known as Postcard Row, for obvious reasons. I just couldn't resist passing this place without taking a photograph of its marvellous panorama.


I keeped walking south, and stepped foot on Haight Street. This Haight community is home to an eclectic mix of individuals, and the most liberal and radical members of American society. The intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets is the famous "Summer of Love". Shops were all very colourful and deviant to the norm, and the whole place irradiated a sense of creativity and diversity.


I walked further, exiting the hippie community only to enter Castro, the world-famous gay and lesbian community. Interesting motifs were rainbow flags that marked the streets, and posters that advertised gay male revues. The southernmost point I reached was the intersection of Castro Street and 18th Street, which is the self-proclaimed "Gayest Four Corners of the World". In Castro, tight guy jeans and guys holding hands were not uncommon.



With so much to see in so little time, I fast-walked back north to reach Golden Gate Park late in the afternoon. This park got me excited as it is the largest man-made park in the world, but I was too late to gain entrance into some major gardens such as the Japanese Tea Garden or the Strybing Arboretum.



After catching the sunset at Ocean Beach (west coast of SF), I bussed to Chinatown for dinner, and checked out some interesting Chinese shops. Cool decorations, crazily expensive ornaments, and even weapons were all on display. I then went on to Union Square for a quick glance around, which is the city's largest shopping area. Hotels, restaurants, theatres, galleries were concentrated in this area (including a whole range of high-class clothes shops and the largest Macy's in the US).


I woke up early the next morning to reach Oakland airport in order to catch a flight which would take me to Los Angeles in time to meet up with some other friends. Carrying my backpack as carry-on and another medium-sized bag as check-in, it was a simple flight on Southwest airlines (it has the cheapest fares). It was a relaxing flight down. Sitting down on the comfy seats was rewarding, considering that I had fast-walked an aggregate of about 7 hours yesterday. In hindsight I realized, that I had needed to see everything that SF is famous for in order to be satisfied. With the same feeling of accomplishment came the epiphany that I am without a doubt, a greedy tourist.

Snowboarding at Lake Tahoe!

After getting picked up by Toby, we went to Dublin, east of Palo Alto to pick up another friend, Morgane. There, we dropped Toby's old car off and loaded all the ski gear into the larger and more convenient typical soccer mom's-car - the Windstar. Picking up Caity, Amy and Nick from Lodi, and cramming every snow-related item into the trunk to the best of our abilities, we stopped by at Carl's Jr for a quick bite and then proceeded towards North Lake Tahoe.

On the way inland, and as we gained altitude, we saw the gradual increase in the amount of ice and snow around us. Then soon enough, it started snowing on us. Chains were put onto our Windstar's front wheels as the roads became icy. Snow patrol officers in fluorescent yellow were giving instructions while huge snow plows periodically eased the terrain for all the motorists' needs.

Foolproof maps guided us into Nevada and ultimately to Caity's cabin, where we arrived later that night. Interesting fact: You know you've crossed the border into Nevada just purely by seeing casinos and neon on the roadside. Caity's place was very nice indeed, with two storeys, two bathrooms and pretty much everything that defines comfortable living. Outside, wading through snow, throwing snowballs and slipping off balance were all great things to be doing again.

Lake Tahoe is a lake on the border between California and Nevada, which contains clear blue waters and boasts many ski resorts on the slopes of its periphery. The Winter Olympics have been held in one of these ski resorts (Alpine Meadows).

Early next morning, we drove with chains to Diamond Peak, one of the ski resorts. Since it had snowed the night before, conditions were perfect for snowboarding, as fresh and thick natural snow covered the slopes while the skies were empty of any precipitation. I strapped on my snowboarding gear and went for my beginner's lesson which was very sore but fun. Getting proficient at the heel side and toe side turns required not only skill, but persistence despite various inflictions of pain from falling on the chest or glutes. Once I had the "falling leaf" pattern slowly worked out, I tried the green slope (the next level up) but got severely punished.

Later that night we grocery shopped, ate Nick's dinner creation of pasta and salad, and chilled out in the warmth of the lounge. I relied on the seven hours sleep I had that night for the much needed growth and repair for the next day of boarding. I must admit though, that getting up the next morning was hard...physically. They were aches from narm.

I attacked the green slope once more, and after completing it with elegant "S patterns" without falling over, I felt like a complete different snowboarder. Something told me to conquer the blue slopes (the next level up) and so I did. However, crashing my pelvis and backwards rolling many times in the process. I felt that the cycle of risk-taking, crashing, getting up and crashing again was an integral part of my real-quick learning over my first two days of snowboarding. By the end of the two days the natural feeling of going down the slopes was awesome!

I was dropped off later that afternoon at Truckee (Californian town with a Wild West character and history as a lumber centre), where I took the Greyhound bus back to San Francisco. Although hard on the wallet, the experience of Tahoe gave me great views of the lake from the high chairlifts, and a newly found passion for snowboarding!

Coastal Road Trip to San Francisco!

In light of the fact that it was possible to make it from San Diego to San Francisco in one day (it's about an 11 hour drive up the slower coastal/scenic route), I got up very early the next morning at dawn. However, the night before was the end of finals night for Thomas Kim, the Korean-American guy who was actually going to be the one driving us up to San Francisco. The compromise between party, sleep and early drive delayed our travel start till after 10am. The other guy going up was Min Seo Ki, a Korean-Korean. We had take-out breakfast at the Cliffs, which is a cliff next to the beach with magnificent views where many UCSD students hang out during the middle of their classes.

With enough caffeine, and anticipation of the trip to come in our systems, we drove straight to our first destination...Orange County, with the windows down and music up. Weather was on our side that day, with good conversation and good songs...ideal! Thomas lived in Fullerton, which is in Orange County, south of downtown LA itself. On the way there we saw glimpses of Disneyland and Crystal Cathedral (the massive church that is broadcast on Channel One on Sundays).


After Thomas had everything packed and ready to go, we found out that the Interstate traffic wasn't as giving as we had hoped, so at Fullerton, we bought a tent to camp out for the night, somewhere south of San Fran. We then continued on our road trip along the Californian coast, where the beaches were beautiful and so was the land. We passed the city of Santa Barbara and stopped by for dinner at Buellton, a city in Santa Barbara County famous for the filming of the 2004 comedy road trip movie, "Sideways". We had dinner at AJ Spurs, a restaurant which gave out a very American vibe.


Next stop was at San Luis Obispo, where we unfortunately rested our eyes for a tad too long at a carpark. Getting to a campsite in time had become a mission (excuse the San Luis Obispo-related pun hehe), as we still had a decent drive ahead of us in order to reach the campsite. The art of speedy but safe night driving was impressive, as we managed to reach Salinas at around midnight. We chose to spend the night at Laguna Seca Mazda Raceway (funnily enough, it had a campsite), west of Salinas. It was freezing despite being inside the tent, the wind chill factor generously giving me 2 hours of sleep that night.

The next morning, we drove south down the coastline of Big Sur, known to have been called "the greatest meeting of land and sea in the world". I remember having had some trouble grasping for superlatives as I took in the amazing views of the mountains, cliffs and rocky coves while holding my camera at eye level. Something I noticed worthy of noting was that the land in NorCal (northern California) was much greener than that of SoCal, with cows on pastures. It often literally seemed like we were driving through New Zealand on the wrong side of the road.

We then drove back north through Monterey, the city famous for the largest aquarium in the US and Pebble Beach. We went further northeast back to Salinas, the agricultural centre known as the "salad bowl of the nation". Famously, it is also the birthplace of Nobel prize-winning author John Steinbeck, who set many of his naturalistic stories near the area ("Of Mice and Men" being one of them). Up the Interstate 101 we drove, towards our final destination many people have recommended as their favourite city in the US, San Francisco.

There was no time to visit Stanford University in Palo Alto, as we only had a few days to explore San Francisco. From the freeway (motorway in NZ English) I could see what Silicon Valley was famous for. Many big-name companies like Google, Intel and Microsoft were concentrated on this stretch of land between Palo Alto and San Jose, world famous as the centre of the computer industry.

Arriving at San Francisco's famous Fisherman's Wharf, we began the adventure of this much-loved city. Without doubt, we had seafood lunch at arrival, including clam chowder and sourdough bread - two things every tourist must have when in this city. Delicious. Fisherman's Wharf was the origin of SF's fishing industry, now given way for tourism as its main focus. Pier 39 felt like an outdoor mall, crowded with eager tourists and locals, having a collection of restaurants, shops and amusements, set against a backdrop of the bay. This place attracted tourists even more by having an area on the dock where Californian sea lions basked and barked. There were also horse rides with carriage wagons, steel robot men (like the one in "Road Trip"), clowns, spray paint artists and breakdance teams, all doing their part in contributing to the liveliness of the atmosphere. Walking down the street next to the piers, I saw the Wax Museum and Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum.





We couldn't leave SF without riding its cable cars, so we hopped on like any other eager tourist would. A central cable car powerhouse wound looped cables underground, generating the force that pulled the cable cars along the hilly streets of the metropolitan area. The cars were slow and shaky, but it was a cool experience riding a form of transport that originated in the 19th century. We went to Ghirardelli Square, once home to the world-famous chocolate factory, where we had an ice-cream called the Earthquake - 8 scoops of ice-cream with 8 toppings, all of choice. For those who know me... yeah, it was my cheat night alright.

Later that night we trekked Chinatown, where there were dragon lampposts, up-turned roofs, and glowing red lanterns. Road signs had a Chinese translation, and so did firms with English titles. Interesting fact: The Chinese are the largest ethnic group in San Francisco! There are many Chinese who speak absolutely no English who live in SF with no trouble. I scrutinised the alleyways and buildings of the area, hoping to remember some scenes from "Karate Kid" and "Indiana Jones" which were filmed here.

We also trekked Downtown SF, and saw the cool high-rise buildings that make SF the New York of the west coast. Most notable was the Transamerica Pyramid, a distinctive landmark with a unique design that is the tallest building of the city.

We stayed the night at Hostelling International for a decent $25 for accommodation and breakfast. I finally rewarded myself with some proper sleep, dropping into a deep state within seconds.

The next morning, we checked out and drove over the Golden Gate bridge. This famous symbol of SF is the most photographed bridge in the world, spanning 1.2 miles in length, having taken four years to build. This internationally orange suspension bridge was probably the climax in terms of the "ooh-aah"'s of San Francisco for me, and it sure was absolutely breathtaking!

We travelled south, had lunch at Quizno's Sub (sort of like Subway) in Palo Alto, where I was picked up by Toby (apartmentmate) to head east towards Nevada to Lake Tahoe!