Fine weather, no fog and already warm at 9 am. Looks like were are in for a terrific day for our last day in SFO.
First duty, after breakfast, is to attend to some laundry, and we conveniently have a small Chinese Laundromat across the road from our motel. After a couple of trips backwards and forwards, Carole has struck a deal and taken a load across to be washed and returned to us after 5pm today.
Todays plans are for a more relaxed day, and maybe a bit more mechanised transport, as we covered a lot of ground on foot yesterday. We head up to the Big Bus stop, but when no bus has shown up after about 10 mins, we decide to walk too the top of Lombard Street, to see the "crookedest street in the World", which is actually part of Lombard Street. It is quite a steep grade up the hill to get there.
View from the top (above) and bottom (below)
The view from the top of the hill made the view worthwhile.
Not everyone drove their cars down the winding road.
We were heading the basic direction of Chinatown, and the next pert of the walk was largely downhill, so we continued on foot, and soon ended up in the North Beach area, which is an Italion settlement. As it is now close to coffee time, we reckon if we could't get a decent cup of coffee here, we are doomed for the rest of our trip. Fortunately we found a nice little Italian Cafe that made great coffee.
Cafe DeLucchi right on the street corner
We are now about 20 minutes from Chinatown, so decide to keep on walking, after all is no that hilly for the next stretch. We enter Chinatown on Stockton Street and discover all of the food markets along itv are in full swing with customers buying the current needs.
You can see the Oakland Bay Bridge from the side streets of Chinatown
And the TransAmerica Pyramid, once the tallest building in USA
Grant Street, the main street of Chinatown
It is now 12.30pm and we are hungry, it seems were aren't doing too well so far with the plan to reduce our walking. Dim Sum is our preference, and we found a good restaurant, that served excellent Dim Sum, and cold beer. Now reinvigorated we headed off to buy a new carry on luggage bag, as one of our bags was overweight when leaving Australia, and we had to empty some contents into a plastic carry bag and carry it on as hand luggage to beat the excess baggage charges.
Not long afterwards we four something suitable, bought it and headed back down the hill. We needed to find a post office to get some stamps to send postcards home to the grandkids, and we pouted in the direction of the nearest post office.
We were greeted by the customary long queue. It seems there is a Worldwide Post Office design that is used universally to ensure that visiting a post office is to be avoided at all times. Nevertheless, about 15 mins later Carole's turn at the counter arrives. The cost to send a postcard to Australia is USD 1.15, which requires a one dollar stamp and 3 x 5 cent stamps (because they were out of 15 cent stamps). Unfortunately this will cover a good deal of the post card, so eventually Carole agreed to pay USD 1.20 so only 2 stamps would be needed.
it was time to head back to the motel, we walked to Union Square and waited for the Big Bus to take us back to Fishermans Wharf stop.
Macys at Union Square
On our trip back along the waterfront we pass the Ferry Building (still a working ferry terminal) with it's impressive clock tower. The clock tower was built without a bell, but chimes every hour and half hour using a recording from Big Ben in London.
We also passed Pier 27, the newly opened cruise terminal, and the Sea Princess is now there, instead of the Zuiderdam that was there yesterday.
The bus dropped us at their base at Fishermans Wharf and we decided to walk further along the waterfront past Fishermans Wharf before heading back up the hill to Lombard Street. As we walked further around, we discovered a nice little harbour beach that had managed to get as few people out and into the water.
We decided to eat locally in Cow Hollow (our local suburb), having discovered a thriving bar and restaurant scene on Union St, a short walk for us.
The dining experience was not great, but in the end we were not charged for it.
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