San Fran: A Day on the Town

As hard as it was to tear ourselves away from our view, we decided we must find the strength to do so. We managed to spend a whole day out and about in San Francisco. We started by walking and then walked some more, and then a little bit further - all over this city. If you've been here, you know what an achievement this is. San Francisco resembles the Himalayas.

Steep as Steep

That angle may not look too bad, but these streets are hundreds of meters long at that gradient. It hurts. And it hurts even more the next day. After walking through Chinatown - it's the largest outside of Asia - and admiring the busy markets and festive lanterns hanging across the streets, we worked our way down to the Embarcadero Center. It's a strip of shops that begin near the waterfront and it was also where Occupy San Francisco was camped. Alas, we were not there to revolt against capitalism but to embrace it. And go ice skating.

Holding on for dear life

I've been on a few outdoor rinks in my time, the first at Marble Arch in London when I was a teenager. I love them and the festive feelings they espouse. If you ever went skating at the long-gone Mirrabooka rink then you'll remember how the condensation would drip from the roof, leaving holes in the ice that would eventually refreeze and grow into bumps. You don't get that problem at an outdoor rink. Instead you get hundreds of small children and their parents, all clutching the edge while trying to walk (the worst thing you can do on skates) and inevitably introducing their bum to the ice.

On our feet

Once our ankles were sufficiently painful we continued to walk along the waterfront, right around to Fisherman's Wharf. It was craaaaaap. Mum said that it was a must see and when she visited (back in the dark ages) it was wonderful. Now it's nothing more than a tourist trap with the obligatory Bubba Gump Shrimp Co restaurant, Ripley's Believe It or Not and a wax museum. Americans seem to actually think these are valid tourist attractions. There was nothing of any real cultural value at Fisherman's Wharf, though you could get a good view of Alcatraz from one of the docks. I think it must been because we've seen so many amazing things and been to so many incredible places, but we just have no time for kitschy tourist "attractions" anymore. We're way too high brow. Fo' rilla.

Unfortunately, the famed cable cars felt a little like a tourist trap. They're expensive to ride and we were going to have to queue for nearly an hour to get on one that would take us back to our hotel - I'm assuming the wait was because of the holiday season madness. We stupidly decided to walk back to the top of Nob Mountain, and we felt like Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay when we finally made it back.