Travelogue - San Francisco! - Part 1

Hi ho all you readers (or none at all). Time for some travelogues as I'm in need to bust a nut on some commentary on various places I've visited recently (ok... so *not* that recently).

My first travelogue is good ol' San Francisco. Yep... home to the Vox team and many other illustrious tech companies. This was my first time to San Francisco and it was really only a brief stopover (en route to Vancouver in Canada). I've always wanted to check out San Francisco and find out what all the fuss was about. We had about a day and half to check out the city!

OK... let me set the scene. We're in Sydney airport on a Friday morning. The taxi has just dropped us off at the International Terminal and we have to make our way to the Qantas check in counters in cattle class (ie. economy). I was thinking we'd be up for a long queue and wait in cattle class but surprisingly, it was actually quite a short line. I know for sure that Saturdays suck for flying out as every other bloody person is doing the same thing and sometimes the check in lines can stretch outside the terminal! So, a tick for choosing Friday to fly out (ok... it was our travel agent who put us on for Friday as there were no available seats on the original Sunday flight to San Fran).

We do the usual check through Immigration and then hang around the Qantas boarding gate destined for San Francisco. It was July 2006 when we actually flew out and that time of the year was winter in Sydney (which we don't particularly like - gimme summer anyday!). I'd rather sweat like a pig than rug up with about 5 to 10 layers of clothing. :)  BTW, we're not fans of winter - so that's why we were heading out of Australia to go somewhere warmer!

After enduring a 13 and half hour flight in cattle class flying across the Pacific (and not getting any sleep at all), we arrive at San Francisco on the same day in the morning (ie. Friday morning San Fran time). I'm still pretty pumped after the flight - even though I didn't get any real sleep (and how could you with the damn plane noise?!). I have to admit that we did get some conscious shut eye (ie. close your eyes and attempt to sleep). It's about 12pm before we get to our hotel in downtown San Francisco. We stayed at the Handlery Union Square Hotel on Geary St that's close by to Union Square (ie. where Macy's and Chinatown are).

Our first glitch (if you'll call it that) was checking into the hotel. At the hotel, we checked in and was told no rooms were available until 3pm! By this time, after a 13 and half hour flight, I was kinda pissed off and was wondering if this is a taste of US customer service to come. If it was, no wonder the US gets a bad rap. We were pretty tired from all the travelling and just wanted to slop on the bed and rest. But nope - we couldn't do that.

The best the hotel could offer was that we leave our luggage in their secured area and we wander around the city for a couple of hours and come back at 3pm for a room. So with that, we grabbed our San Francisco map and digital cameras, and headed off in whatever direction we could find. By this time, we hadn't slept for about 22 hours.

After a couple of false starts (hey, this was our first time in the city), we managed to find Chinatown. A weird obsession in our travels was to gravitate towards the Chinatown in each of the cities we visited. Perhaps we thought that there would be some familiarity in seeing some things Chinese. And sure enough, we did. We wandered through the streets of Stockton and Grant and heard the familiar sounds of Cantonese being spoken. And even more funnier was the fact that we could hear the Zhongshan (my parents home village) accent from many of the local folk there. Bizarre!

We were a bit thirsty by then and stopped by a bubble tea place. My sister and I are new connoisseurs of the bubble tea phenomena. We tried out this place and ordered from the menu. The lady went ahead and made our drinks. We waited and watched as the lady mixed and fiddled with the various tools of the trade. I noticed her mixing some of the ingredients into a hot mixture - by this time it looked strange. I was expecting some cool or cold mixture as part of the drink preparation. By the time we finally got our drinks and started drinking it, I noticed that it was kinda warm - not really what I was expecting (given that it was summer in the US - although in San Francisco, that doesn't really mean anything - more on this later!). My sister screwed up her face a bit after drinking her bubble tea and pronounced that it wasn't that great (and that's putting it mildly).

After two hours of walking around aimlessly in the city, we head back to the hotel and hoping that there might be a room ready for us. The hotel staff say that they are still fixing up the room. By this point I'm thinking how bloody long does it take to set up a room? So there we are - all three of us sitting in the lobby - tired and still wearing our winter clothing from Sydney. We're all a bit grumpy by then (and that's putting it mildly).

Finally, we get our room at around 2.30pm and slop on the bed for some light rest. Having rested a bit, we decide to eat some cheap takeout before exploring the San Francisco shopping centre (which is owned by our very own Westfield company - an Aussie company).

After wandering in and then out of the shopping centre (and buying nothing :P), we decide to take a ride on the famed San Francisco cable cars down to Fisherman's Wharf. This was around 7pm in the evening.

Has anyone mentioned that San Francisco has some weird weather? It was warm during the day and then it dipped into some biting windy wintery conditions during the evening. So the ride on the cable car was a bit cool and wintery. By the time we got to Fisherman's Wharf there was a handful of tourists walking about. We didn't have much to look at as it was getting a bit dark by then and we headed back to the cable car to take us back to Union Square. Little did we know that the cable car was one of the last ones for the night and it only stopped at just before Chinatown. So, after that, we had to make our way on foot back to the hotel - a rather brisk 15 minute walk (I think). We ended having late night junk food at Jack in the Box (the only thing that was open for business and was cheap!).

Finally, after what must be over 30 hours without any sleep (from Sydney to San Francisco and then wandering around San Fran), we get a decent snooze that evening! The hotel room we got at the Handlery was, admittedly, quite spacious and comfortable - so apart from the checking in process, I'm dozing off into lala land.

Next day... it's a city tour!