Day 5 : San Francisco

We arrived at the San Francisco Greyhound Transbay Terminal at Fremont Street at dawn about 6.30am. It was already bright, though still kind of chilly because of the wind. I remember navigating our way down to Union Square, dragging our luggage across the streets, stopping now and then to warm our frozen fingers, haha actually MY frozen fingers. And him trying to walk over drains where hot air was blowing out from until I asked him whether he thought about where the air was coming from and pointed out that the hot air, albeit comforting in the wind, does smell a little funny.

We stopped at Cafe Mason for breakfast and freshening up, just around the corner of the Touchstone Hotel on Geary St where we were supposed to check in but reception was not opened yet till 8am. After leaving our luggage at the hotel, we were pretty ready to tour the city, even though a little tired from not sleeping on the Greyhound the night before.

I think he liked the walk we took to Fisherman's Wharf. Especially the Nob Hill area. Despite the fact that some of the hills were almost at 45 degrees incline. There's just something about the quaint little houses and the fresh air and cool breeze, they all made the neighbourhood very "how-i-wish-i-stayed-here". Even if it meant climbing stairs like these.






The iconic trams, or rather as they are called Cable Cars, of San Francisco. Passengers are mostly tourists, it's USD$5 for a ride, no matter where u get on/off. The cable car operates from Union Square to Fisherman's Wharf and back, making stops in between.


We reached the world's crookedest street, Lombardt Street. I wonder how it would be like to drive down that stretch... We didn't had the chance to do so, perhaps the next time we're back there. I wonder how the people living there can tolerate nosy tourists poking around their street every single day.


This was my fourth time back there (hence explains my fingers) and his first.




We eventually reached Ghirardelli Square near Fisherman's Wharf and stopped at the Ghirardelli Chocolate Cafe for desserts and stock up on the famous Ghirardelli Squares for souvenirs. We ordered a sundae and rich hot chocolate to share, both of which I failed to capture in pictures because they simply looked too yummy that I immediately started on them when they were served. Haha. The serving was pretty big though and we ended up not finishing both, which was such a waste.


After we were done stuffing ourselves silly with sin, we took a walk down to Fisherman's Wharf just next door. There is really nothing much at Fisherman's Wharf except for piers, seafood restaurants and souvenir shops lining the whole street. Another one of those very-difficult-to-self-take couple shot.


That's Alcatraz behind us. Another tourist spot that we gave a miss because there really isn't anything much to see there except for prison remains. Alcatraz island used to be a military prison and federal prison until 1963, when it became a national recreation area (aka tourist con).


So here's a zoom in on the island from the Bay area where we were.


Hence concludes our visit to Fisherman's Wharf because we were so tired we were just falling off our seats at Ghirardelli after our ice-cream and hot chocolate indulgence. Plus the fact that we were merely surviving on one cappuccino worth of caffeine (make that half each) after a sleepless night on the Greyhound to San Francisco.

By 2pm we were so drained of energy we didn't even have enough strength to walk back to the Union Square area from Fisherman's Wharf. We bought a one way cable car ticket back to Union Square and checked into the hotel, washed up and nap till it was dinner time.