USA Roadtrip 2012 - Day 5
Sep. 11th, 2021 02:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanSept 15. Saturday – San Francisco
Brunch with Chris P & his partner Jo, who had just flown in from Virginia (insert joke about tired arms here...), at Q Café (2021 update - Q Café closed in 2014), a Mexican place relatively close to where we were staying – just a short ride on the 38 bus & one block's walk. While waiting for Chris & Jo, I found the Bitter End Cafe just up the road from Q. We plan to have breakfast there tomorrow, though I doubt Joni Mitchell or Arlo Guthrie will be serenading us as we have our eggs. Mexican breakfasts, meanwhile, are full of flavours & very filling. My ‘Bedo Bomb’ was a kind of chorizo & eggs tortilla, Julia’s salsa, egg & potato-based dish was polished off quickly as well. Afterwards Chris & Jo went off “on a date”, so we caught the bus into town & headed for the Ferry Building, intending to get to either Chinatown or Fisherman’s Wharf, whichever was easier. After waiting a while for a suitable tram we eventually took a bicycle taxi to Chinatown, with some commentary from our hard-pedalling driver on local wildlife & geography. I mis-heard the fare & ended up giving him a 50% tip... no wonder he was so pleased
Chinatown was crowded. Really crowded... on every street we were buffeted, pushed barged & several small Chinese women were nearly trampled under my boots as they scooted past me from all angles. Eventually we couldn’t take any more, took a bus back to Union Square & headed for the Powell St cable cars, which climb the steep streets above the Bay before dropping down again to Fisherman’s Wharf. We hadn’t counted on them being so popular, our first attempt to board one at a tram stop failed as the car was already full... as was the next one, so we walked down to the starting point which is also where they manually turn the cars around on a circular platform. The queue there started on one side of the track, wended around the turning bay & up the other side of the track ‘til the boarding area was marked by a saxophonist playing 60s soul. As we joined the queue, a gravel-voiced man on a soapbox nearby urged us all to fear God & be prepared to die at any time, even now... just how dangerous are these trams?? Eventually he must have run out of throat lozenges, as he packed up & his disciples folded up their banners & signs, helped by a woman wearing a sweatshirt with a quote from Ephesians on the back – ‘Women submit to your husbands as you would submit to your God’. And they say Islam is unfair to women...
It took just over an hour for us to reach the soul saxophonist & board our car. We thought it would be fun to take one of the side seats & take turns hanging off the side of the car. As it turned out, I ended up hanging there the entire trip, as the car rapidly became too full to enable any seat-swapping. You certainly get up close & personal with cable cars coming the other way, as well as some of the braver cars & trucks... & your upper arms get a great workout, as it’s not like you could just let go & run alongside for a while. After an eternity which was probably only about twenty minutes, we arrived at Fisherman’s Wharf, which was both a lot bigger than I’d expected (I thought it was just one wharf with some restaurants. Maybe fifty years ago, but not now!) & much more of a tourist trap than we’d anticipated. After a little wandering, we stepped into the Blue Mermaid Chowder Bar & had a sampling plate of all six of their chowder styles, three of which were quite good, two were okay & one was a kind of tomato soup with seafood. Nice New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc though...
More wandering through the various shops, heading vaguely back towards town, then we realised how time was getting away from us, so took a tram back the rest of the way, then connected with the 38 bus back to Richmond. Have I mentioned how much we’ve been impressed by San Franciscan Public Transport? A short break back at the apartment, then a change of footwear & we grabbed the cameras & tripods for a trip up to Marin Headland above the northern end of the Golden Gate. A fantastic sunset into the Pacific Ocean, with the inevitable fog rolling in from the sea & some nice night shots as the Bridge, Bay & City lit up & were gradually enveloped by the fog.
Going...
Going... gone
Night lights...
We then discovered how hungry we were, so back to the apartment to drop off the camera gear & to a Mexican place called Nopalito's for a dinner which had noble intentions of being a small one, but was pretty filling nonetheless. The fog had really set in by the time we were driving back, which made me happy – I love a driving challenge. A stop at a Safeway supermarket for roadtrip supplies & back to the apartment for preliminary packing & bed... eventually
Brunch with Chris P & his partner Jo, who had just flown in from Virginia (insert joke about tired arms here...), at Q Café (2021 update - Q Café closed in 2014), a Mexican place relatively close to where we were staying – just a short ride on the 38 bus & one block's walk. While waiting for Chris & Jo, I found the Bitter End Cafe just up the road from Q. We plan to have breakfast there tomorrow, though I doubt Joni Mitchell or Arlo Guthrie will be serenading us as we have our eggs. Mexican breakfasts, meanwhile, are full of flavours & very filling. My ‘Bedo Bomb’ was a kind of chorizo & eggs tortilla, Julia’s salsa, egg & potato-based dish was polished off quickly as well. Afterwards Chris & Jo went off “on a date”, so we caught the bus into town & headed for the Ferry Building, intending to get to either Chinatown or Fisherman’s Wharf, whichever was easier. After waiting a while for a suitable tram we eventually took a bicycle taxi to Chinatown, with some commentary from our hard-pedalling driver on local wildlife & geography. I mis-heard the fare & ended up giving him a 50% tip... no wonder he was so pleased
Chinatown was crowded. Really crowded... on every street we were buffeted, pushed barged & several small Chinese women were nearly trampled under my boots as they scooted past me from all angles. Eventually we couldn’t take any more, took a bus back to Union Square & headed for the Powell St cable cars, which climb the steep streets above the Bay before dropping down again to Fisherman’s Wharf. We hadn’t counted on them being so popular, our first attempt to board one at a tram stop failed as the car was already full... as was the next one, so we walked down to the starting point which is also where they manually turn the cars around on a circular platform. The queue there started on one side of the track, wended around the turning bay & up the other side of the track ‘til the boarding area was marked by a saxophonist playing 60s soul. As we joined the queue, a gravel-voiced man on a soapbox nearby urged us all to fear God & be prepared to die at any time, even now... just how dangerous are these trams?? Eventually he must have run out of throat lozenges, as he packed up & his disciples folded up their banners & signs, helped by a woman wearing a sweatshirt with a quote from Ephesians on the back – ‘Women submit to your husbands as you would submit to your God’. And they say Islam is unfair to women...
It took just over an hour for us to reach the soul saxophonist & board our car. We thought it would be fun to take one of the side seats & take turns hanging off the side of the car. As it turned out, I ended up hanging there the entire trip, as the car rapidly became too full to enable any seat-swapping. You certainly get up close & personal with cable cars coming the other way, as well as some of the braver cars & trucks... & your upper arms get a great workout, as it’s not like you could just let go & run alongside for a while. After an eternity which was probably only about twenty minutes, we arrived at Fisherman’s Wharf, which was both a lot bigger than I’d expected (I thought it was just one wharf with some restaurants. Maybe fifty years ago, but not now!) & much more of a tourist trap than we’d anticipated. After a little wandering, we stepped into the Blue Mermaid Chowder Bar & had a sampling plate of all six of their chowder styles, three of which were quite good, two were okay & one was a kind of tomato soup with seafood. Nice New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc though...
More wandering through the various shops, heading vaguely back towards town, then we realised how time was getting away from us, so took a tram back the rest of the way, then connected with the 38 bus back to Richmond. Have I mentioned how much we’ve been impressed by San Franciscan Public Transport? A short break back at the apartment, then a change of footwear & we grabbed the cameras & tripods for a trip up to Marin Headland above the northern end of the Golden Gate. A fantastic sunset into the Pacific Ocean, with the inevitable fog rolling in from the sea & some nice night shots as the Bridge, Bay & City lit up & were gradually enveloped by the fog.
Going...
Going... gone
Night lights...
We then discovered how hungry we were, so back to the apartment to drop off the camera gear & to a Mexican place called Nopalito's for a dinner which had noble intentions of being a small one, but was pretty filling nonetheless. The fog had really set in by the time we were driving back, which made me happy – I love a driving challenge. A stop at a Safeway supermarket for roadtrip supplies & back to the apartment for preliminary packing & bed... eventually
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Date: 2021-09-11 01:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-09-11 10:49 pm (UTC)