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Other entries in San Francisco

The Golden City

At 5am we finally caught our first glimpse of San Francisco and more importantly a few minutes later we got off the bus- yipee!!

Our first impression of San Francisco was not great as we arrived in the dodgy part of town to but we managed to get a cab and then things got better. San Fran is a truely gorgeous city with a great vibe, the streets are just as you would imagine them- crazily steep with trams and cars coming from all directions, in fact we half expected to see a movie style car chase with cars flying down stupidly steep hills!!

We made it to our hostel on the corner of Taylor and Sutter streets quite near the centre, and waited until we could check in to our room at ten. We amused our selves wih many games of cards and even a trip out to find a suitably greasy breakfast. At ten we checked in and showered then headed off to explore the city.

First stop Union Square with Macys and Dior and even Macys Holidayland - a shop dedicated to all things festive and christmasy already and in the centre of the square was a park with local art on display. On into Chinatown checking out the historic sites, it was very authentic we felt like we had been transported right back to Hong Kong. We stopped off at the birthplace of fortune cookies - apparently they are a San Fran invention, and watched them being made then sampled them still warm! We stopped off in chinatown and had an all you can eat Indian for lunch (confusing!!)

From here we headed to the Coit Tower - which was set on top of the 87m high Telegraph Hill. We finally made it up the stupidly steep road and all the hundreds of steps and then took the escalator up the 63m high tower. What an amazing view of the city and the bay - a complete 360' view. The tower was a gift to the city from the "ecentric" Lillie Hitchcock Coit" - nice gift! From here we got our first glimpse of Alcatraz- the famous prison on the rock!

As this was on our list of sights to see we headed down to the seafront and the famous Pier 39 where we wandered round the shops before booking our tickets to Alcatraz for tomorrow. Decided to get the Trolley (tram/bus) back to the hostel after seeing how big the hill was we would have to conquer to get home.

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