San Francisco : A Tourist Hot-Spot

Please don’t be startled, this was not an attempted suicide. I wouldn’t do so, especially with a smiling face.

The above photograph was taking on the persistence of my best friend next to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which was our first destination of the West Coast trip.

We boarded an American Airlines flight to San Francisco from New Jersey airport on Wednesday evening around 5.00 pm with a stopover in Atlanta (where our flight was delayed by 2 hours) and we touched base in SF at about 1.00 am Thursday morning.

My cousin who lives in San Jose picked us from the SF airport, which I must say is huge and very well equipped. Tired and sort-off jet lagged we were off to bed as soon as we got to his house (obviously after the greeting-sheeting with the other family members).

Scene at Pier 39

After a heavy breakfast enforced by my aunt, we were off to SF city via CalTrain which did put a big dent in our pockets with a fare of $23.00 (return ticket). Depending on the train one gets on, it usually takes anywhere between 90 - 115 minutes to reach SF. Busses to Fisherman’s Wharf are easily gettable outside the SF CalTrain station with a frequency of every 15 to 20 minutes.

The bus ride takes around 25 minutes to reach Fisherman’s Wharf, which is undoubtly the main tourist hub of SF. The whole place is filled with people and for once you seem to gel in with crowd with your maps and big carry bags. And another thing the Wharf side is very cold and breezy so never ever forget to go there without a jumper or a pullover - I had to learn it the frozen way.

Once at Fisherman’s Wharf, we headed towards famous Alcatraz tour’s ticket office which is located at Pier 39, which is the liveliest section of the Wharf. But sadly, this was one adventure I would be deprived off. Apparently the tickets should be booked online in advance since it’s really popular among the tourists and therefore barely anyone manages to get tickets last minute. It was simply hard to believe that the tickets were sold-out for the next 4 days. Huh!

View of the Golden Gate Bridge from the cruise

Anyways, with slight disappointment we ventured onto further exploring Pier 39 and rest of the wharf area. This place is a lot similar to the Circular Quay area in Sydney, Australia. Loads of restaurants, amazing sea food, plenty of entertainment places such as the Wax Museum, Ripley’s Believe it or Not and Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory, souvenir stores, street vendors plus you have a variety of Bay cruises to pick from.

We had lunch at Wipe Out, a restaurant I would recommend to all. The place is slightly heavy on the pocket but all worth it in the end. Then we enjoyed the Red & White Fleet cruise (cost $15), which took us around Alcatraz and the Golden Gate. They provide an audio guide, which is very handy for someone like me who is intrigued with mystery and history. Later we spent nearly forty minutes at the candy store, one of the best I have every seen.

Finally around 6.00 in the evening, after a cup of hot chocolate at ever so favorite Costa, we headed back to San Jose.

The next day instead of taking a bus ride to the Wharf, we walked to Union Square (shopping hub) and took the famous Cable Car ride. The Cable ride costs around $5.00 (one-way) and it takes you to the Fisherman’s Wharf (last stop) right from the heart of the city center. The curvy and up-hill roads of SF make the whole journey fun-filled and exciting; it really does feel like a mini roller coaster ride.

Paicific Heights

At the Wharf, we had amazing sea food at a road-side stall. The fresh crab meat was simply scuba-delicious. For dessert we hogged on Haagen Dazs ice-cream, my favorite flavors being Belgian Chocolate and Strawberry with Cream. We then spent the afternoon on a open bus tour of SF. The tour costs around $17.00 and takes about 3 hours. It doesn’t stop at any of the points except the Golden Gate, here we get good 15 minutes to walk around the bridge (and you definitely need a jumper here). The bus basically goes around the main and known locations in SF like Pacific Heights, Lombard Street, Nob Hill, etc. Our tour guide, the bus driver was really a character. Very funny with his words and encouraged us to ask him questions by tempting us with lollies. We requested him to let us to get off at China Town (which is supposedly the biggest China Town outside of China) and then we just walked around from there back to the Union Square.

The big China Bazaar

The SF China Town is very different to the ones I have seen in NYC, Washington and Sydney. Firstly the place is clean, beautiful, very vibrant and welcoming for visitors. Shops are expensive but the variety and quality cannot be matched with their cheaper versions across US and other countries.

We spent the remaining part of the evening with my cousins (my dad’s side cousin is married to my mum’s side cousin) and they were sweet enough to take us to a really poshy Italian restaurant in Union Square.

If there is any other place, other than Sydney that I would love to settle down in than it would be San Francisco. The city is absolutely beautiful, a little on the colder side (I am not very fond of summer) and the people are warm and friendly. It has a lot to offer not only from a tourist point-of view but also to its local residents.

I will end this post by saying that SF is a “paisa vasool” city for tourists and it surely deserves thumbs-up for its impressiveness.

Oh! I forgot to add, when at Fisherman’s Wharf, look out for an old army guy who walks around with a few heavy tree branches in his hand scaring not suspecting tourists (basically a street performer) and do walkover to Pier 39, if you are interested in looking at Sea Lions warm their lazy butts in the sun.

Here are some snaps from the trip.

• Culture, Me, Travel
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