San Francisco May to June 2009

25th May 2009

8am - I took a cab down to Changi Airport.
9am - I met Jovina Da jie at the airport for breakfast. It’s so sweet of her to send me off.

SIN to HKG flight at 11am, transited at Hong Kong international airport.

Reached San Francisco international airport at 1:30pm (GMT -9)

Simon drove YX and I to Millbrae BART station for transfer to the city of San Francisco.

Purchased SF City Pass
4pm - I met Sheena at Powell station
6pm – Went for a house party in Sunnyvale
10pm – Simon’s place in Sunnyvale ( time to knock out) my jet-lag taken effect.

26th May 2009

10:20am – Mountain View, the nearest Caltrain station from Simon’s place. Caltrain has an interval of an hour. The ride to San Francisco City takes 1hr 8min. It’s the only mode of transport from Sunnyvale to San Francisco.

11:28am – San Francisco Caltrain Station
We took Muni N --> Market Street (Powell Muni Station)
Muni serves platform stations and regular roads. The alighting platform modify accordingly.

Market Street: F Peter Witt tram --> Fisherman Wharf

F peter Witt tram is a tourist attraction in SF.

Fisherman Wharf – Pier 39

City Pass attraction #1: Blue and Gold Fleet – the only sightseeing ferry that goes under golden gate bridge.

Sealions - permanent residents of Pier 39.

You break rules, you go to prison. If you break prison rules you go to Alcatraz.

Golden Gate Bridge

Bay of SF

Back to Pier 39

Lunch at Pier Market – [MUST EAT] in SF Sour Dough Calm Chowder. Yummy~ Splendid

Hello Miller-Lite!

City Pass #2 - Aquarium by the Bay (similar to underwater world at Sentosa)

Jellyfishes

Highlight - Giant Pacific Octopus

Chin-chilla

Another historical transportation of SF cable car, it’s turned around manually at the turn-around junction. The cable car operates on steep slopes of major roads.

There is a power failure on cable car, transferred over to a Muni.
Graffiti on the street (PoKemon)

Locating Amsterdam Hostel... It’s a the intersect before Sutter and Taylor street
I went ahead to check in as YX send Sheena off to SFO.
It’s the first hostel that I ever stayed in. It appears to be so much better then I thought. We stayed in a mixed dorm.

Our dorm mates are from Utah, USA. With coincidence, they used to stay in Sandusky when they were kids. Haha.. I miss shopping at TJ Max~

While waiting for YX to have dinner, I took a walk down Bush street.

Financial district

Nob Hill adult theatre

We went to Peking Restaurant for dinner to curb YX’s craving for Chinese food.

Home Sweet Hostel!

27th May 2009

Started the day with warm waffles.. Yummy~

It is 8:45am, our pick-up to the super-sightseeing office arrived half an hour behind schedule.

Wine country tour commences at 9am. We crossed the bay bridge over in our shuttle. The ride’s a less than an hour. There is a new bridge that is still in the process of construction, it is said to substitute the current bay bridge but who knows how long more will it takes.

Napa River – Upstream

Napa River – Downstream

1st Winery: Sutter House winery
Most of the vines are 100 to 150 years old. (Optimum age)

Lunch Break – Market Place

2nd Winery: Madonna Estate

Reds are aged in French Oak

CCOF Organic Certified.
Estate bottled

3rd Winery: Sonoma Valley

Back to SF city, we took the cable to Market street. We had dinner at Blondie’s Pizza, high calories but it tastes so much better than Pizza Hut! It’s my favourite! Seriously, it is just how pizza should taste. The half melted cheese with extra cheese topping.. wooh~ We took the 9:40pm caltrain from SF station to mountain view station. We reached Mountain View at 10:48pm, it was freezing cold~ bbbrrr waiting for Simon to pick us from the station.

28th May 2009

Muni – an unique public transport in SF. It serve regular train platforms and on the road.

Golden Gate bridge, on a misty day.

Palace of fine arts

City Pass #3 – Exploratorium (Mega size Science centre but a lot more interactive)

Night tour to Alcatraz Prison departs from pier 33.

29th May 2009

Stanford University Ca, a college of famous golfers.

The school compound is so pretty. We took a shuttle bus to Palo Alto Caltrain station.

Civic Cente – City Hall

Where the mayor of SF works..

74x – Culture bus to Golden Gate Park

Golden Gate bridge is in the north while Golden Gate Park is in the south. Haha.. weird~

City Pass #4 - California Academy of Sciences (The earth under one roof)
African Safari, Extinct creatures, Deep sea, The Arctic
This is a MUST SEE attraction! It brings the Earth to life.

Conservatory of Flowers

On the street... A mouse, A cat and A dog

We met Steffi and Yaugen from Germany for dinner~ Once again, dinner at blondie pizza.
Ich spreche ein wenig Deutsch

Arizona Drink only 99cents! - Multi favoured drink.

Sunnyvale downtown – Madness!! Almost the entire street is filled with Chinese.

Fortune teller on the street..