Dragon Rambles

A.K.A: San Francisco – Part 5

Through all the walking of my Wed morning, I was planning the most indulgent lunch. And that meant heading to the Bay. Not the Fisherman’s Wharf part, but a much, much better part. On the way I passed the end of a cable car line and realised I hadn’t taken a photo of one yet. Perfect opportunity.

The place I was headed for lunch was just a block away from here, I was headed for Ghirardelli Square.

This was once where there was a Ghirardelli chocolate factory. I think maybe the first but I can’t remember and can’t be bothered looking for the history page I picked up. While the choc factory is no longer there, there are 3 choc shops. I of course headed for the biggest

Because my target for lunch was the ice cream shop attached to its side.

Doesn’t the menu look tasty?

Since I prefer dark chocolate I was eyeing those ones up (top right of the menu). I was tossing up between the choc and the mint. I chose the mint one, but there was a bunch of screaming kids right behind me in line so the guy behind the counter didn’t hear the mint part and I got the choc one. I didn’t really mind though.

But I did wonder if it was meant for two people after it arrived with two spoons. I had a go trying to eat it all myself though.

But it defeated me

Alas on the last day of the conference I only had to see two talks and 1 poster. I was absolutely devastated that I only had to be there from 9 ’til 10ish. Just what would I do with the rest of the day? Why, sightsee of course! Thankfully I was smart enough to drop off my conference gear at the hotel before heading off because I ended up walking pretty much the length and breadth of the city.

To start off the day I walked down to Colt Tower. Sure it would have been MUCH quicker to catch a bus but it felt like a lovely May Spring day so I was enjoying the warm walk.

Colt Tower was built in 1933 and inside all around the base are some great depression-era murals.

You can also pay $5 to take the lift to the top to check out the view. It was a great 365º view too, but my favourite was just from one side.

You can just see the Crooked St just to the left, although of course the obvious landmark is the bridge. While I was up there I also got a good view of Alcatraz.

Before leaving Telegraph Hill, I got a great shot of Crooked St from the Tower parking lot. It’s not really called Crooked St, it’s actually part of Lombard, but I think everyone refers to it by its crooked name. And you can see why

I got the bright idea to walk up to the base of it to get a good shot. OMG! What a steep hill. And just when you don’t think it could get steeper, it does. The view from the base of the crooked section isn’t as great as from Telegraph Hill, but it’s still crazy. And you can see some cars making their way down.

After this energetic morning, I decided to head to the bay for lunch. Thankfully it was mostly downhill from here

Ok, I’m home and I’ve recovered enough from the jet lag to start uploading my photos and blogging about the rest of my trip. On the 3rd day of the conference (Tues), I finally didn’t have to be in all day, and with what ended up being a 1.45pm start at the conference, I headed off in the morning to do some sight-seeing. I started with all the others (as we were all playing hooky) and we rode a cable car down to Fisherman’s Wharf. Where to? Why Pier 39 of course. I had heard that all the sea lions had gone, but as we got close we heard them so decided to check it out.

And yep, while not all the sea lions were gone, most had obviously swam off to better seas. Look at all the empty pontoons.

But those that were still there were still fun to watch. There was the big daddy standing proud and statue-still for so long that one of the guys thought he WAS a statue.

And a little guy going off for a swim, but he took so long getting up the courage (maybe the water was a little too cold), that I caught him in a very undignified position.

The others all headed off to Alcatraz after that but I wanted to check out the Palace of Fine Arts before heading back to the conference. Vicky said I should and I figured there’d be a good reason. On the way I passed some great bread art in the big Boudin bakery on Fisherman’s Wharf.

I also visited Ghirardelli Square to pick up some chocolate. I found another treat for myself too, but I’m going to blog about that later as I haven’t taken a photo yet of my present.

There were some great houses on the way to the Palace, here are a couple.

There were some great houses just across the road from the Palace of Fine Arts too, but I was too distracted taking photos of their view, that I didn’t take any of them. To be fair, none of them could live up to their view.

See what I mean! Gorgeous view. I took a stack of photos of this beautiful place (Miss Vicky was SOOO right). Unfortunately there was a big rent-a-fence all around the actual palace so I couldn’t go in and gaze at it’s gorgeousness. Probably a good thing or I’d never have made it back to the conference centre in time. But with the bits I could see, and by sticking my camera through the fence I got some great shots.

And since I couldn’t walk through all that beauty, I had time to walk out to Crissy Field and take a photo of the bridge disappearing into the rain.

The rest of the day I was at the conference. I’ll blog more later on what I got up to Wed and Thurs before coming home.