Today was the day we had to leave San Francisco.  Bummer.  But at least I finally found a decent cappuccino! Maybe a 7/10 on the iScott Coffee Scale.  This was at the  Cosy Cable Car Café.  But the rest of breakfast was a bit … meh.

There wasn’t much else to do after breakfast other than double check everything was packed and ready to go, have a mope about leaving San Francisco, and wait for the car to arrive to pick us up and take us to the airport.

When the car turned up – we were happy to see Seyfu, the same guy that picked us up when we arrived.  Not sure if that was planned or a coincidence, but he did a good job so was nice to see him again.  He got us to the airport with plenty of time to spare.

I’ve read a number of horror stories about the time it takes to get through security as US airports, especially when flying domestically.   Fortunately, today was pretty good. Though you do still need to take your shoes off.  We were flying wth Alaska Air, and there’s no Alaska lounge at SFO domesticate terminal… I know, the horror! So we just hung around in the departure lounge, it was all good.   I wandered around the shops, and took photos of an exhibit of beckoning cats, supplied by a local museum. Before long it was time to board, and we jumped on to our A320.  I was bit surprised to see it was actually a Virgin America plane, until I remembered that Alaska Air bought Virgin America airline a little while ago.  The flight was great, the seat was big and comfy, I could only just touch the wall in front of me with my feet if I tried, so it still counts as a pass from me for the legroom check.  Staff were nice, the meal was tasty.  We even flew over a nice snow-covered mountain.

Legroom test

Check out how ridiculously cute their salt and pepper shaker is! 

The flight felt shorter than it was, and after a very smooth landing, hello, Seattle!  There’s light rail that runs from the airport into downtown Seattle, just follow the signs, they said.  And then follow the signs.  And more signs.  Then … a few more signs.  Eventually, yep we made it it was just a bit further away that I would’ve thought.  But no drama – a train arrived just the same time we did, so we were on our way pretty much straight away. 

Follow MANY signs like this one

Watching the world go by, a few things became evident pretty quickly.  Its a lot greener, trees are a lot pointier, and basically everyone has a frontward and a backyard.  It was interesting to see so many of th house were all wood – even some in the ‘California Bungalow’ style we know at home – but at home all the stone and brick parts were still built out of wood.

We stopped at a station called Othello.  It was ok – but didn’t stand out compared to other stations – ’tis neither here nor there.  (yes I had to work an Othello quote into it somehow…)

We soon arrived at ‘our’ station – Westlake.  Rather grand, big, and pretty, Seattle was looking pretty good so far.  We bad about 700m to walk to get to the hotel – a bit of a slog with luggage in tow, but we made it.  Though about two blocks from the hotel, when we hit Belltown, something changed.  Or rather, Seattle changed.  On first impressions, it kinda let like we were staying in somewhere like Tenderloin.  There are a sizeable group of homeless people just across the road from the hotel, near a park.  It turned kinda unpleasant pretty quickly, with people asking us for money etc.  But we made to the hotel with no drama.  The hotel itself is really nice.  Very clean, really nice staff, and the room is spacious enough, and extremely clean and tidy.  If there is to be a downside … checkout the view!

But I have subsequently read that having a view like this is bit of a blessing, as the crowd who live on the streets below get so raucous, that the hotel even supplies free ear plugs for all the people staying in street-facing rooms.  Now, I know it’s too easy to just talk about homeless people as being a problem. An annoyance that one wishes they could just magically ‘get rid of’.  But the realities are far more complex, and it really reminds me very sharply of my own privilege and good fortune – I have somewhere to live.  I have clean clothes.  I get the opportunity to travel to other parts of the world.  These people for the most part, have nothing.  And it can be all too easy to forget that they’re human, they may be there through no fault of their own, and most of them are off their chops on drugs because how else could you face living a life like that.  I dunno, I don’t have the answers to homelessness.  It happens for many reasons. And I freely admit the discomfort I feel when walking past them is partly due to the good fortune I have in this privileged life.  They’re human, they deserve respect, but I’m stuffed if I know where to even begin to try and do anything to help.

But enough of my moral dilemmas. We’re in a dodge part of town, so be it.  But once we went out exploring, just a block away everything’s much more just like a normal city again.  We found another exclusive ‘Ross for Less’ haute couture boutique (lol) – because we needed to buy another bag.  Yep, after visiting just one city, we bought enough crap that Alaska air said both of our bags were too heavy, and don’t try pulling that trick with them again.  Happily we’re each entitled to check in two bags if we like, but each bag can’t be as heavy as the ones we checked in today.  It was kind of them to let the bags through even when one was 7 pounds over the limit. So. We have another bag.  Which will probably lead to more shopping… so yeah this could become a problem, but of course a nice kind of problem to have.

We found an italian restaurant nearby – Assagio.  https://www.assaggioseattle.com .  A good choice! The meals were delicious, and the cocktails very strong indeed.  The Moscow Mule did indeed have a kick just like its namesake.  Delicious canoli for dessert, too.  So if ever you’re passing through Seattle, it’s worth popping in for a quality feed. 

We had dinner kinda early – wanted to be back ‘home’ before everything really kicked off out the front.  With a sunset time of 9:06pm though, that’s easily done.

So there we go, first day in Seattle.  First impressions are … mixed. Let’s see what tomorrow will bring.

Today started quietly – all this holidaying is starting to wear us out I think! We didn’t get out til around 9. No big adventures planned for the day, but breakfast turned out to be a small adventure. We started walking down down Market st toward the bay, figuring we’ll find plenty of brekky options on the way. But nope, not in the financial district. Just like Martin Place back home. It’s pretty much devoid of all life outside of business hours. After a good 15-20 minutes of walking we found a Starbucks that was open. That’ll do.

During our stay here, every streetcar we’d been on had an advert for the train museum, so thought we’d give it a go. It’s on Steuart St, not far from the ferry building. I don’t know if there’s such a word as museumette. But if there is, it’s be perfect for describing the small room that we entered – after waiting 10 mins for the proprietor to come back his smoke/coffee break. Though small it was perfectly formed, and crammed a good bit of info about San Francisco’s public transportation history – including how  16 year old Maya Angelou became the first woman ti drive streetcars in San Francisco.  (Fun Fact, remember it for trivia nights! 🙂 )   In San Francisco they like to think of public transport as “your second car” which I think is a great way of looking at things.   It’s a pretty good way to get around town, and so many options.  Cable Car, Streetcar, Bus, Trolley Bus, Underground train… it’s all very cool.

Streetcar (red ones go faster)

Trolley bus (with its big yellow ‘locust legs’ to pick up the overhead power

After our brief stop at the museum  it was time to get a streetcar to Fisherman’s wharf, so we could hop on the hop on hop off bus, to visit the Academy of Science. Yesterday’s Big Bus tour guide talked about it a bit, sounded good, so thought we’d give it a go.  It’s on Golden Gate Park. It’s a little like New York’s Central Park, in so far as it’s a long and relatively skinny piece of parkland. Lovely to see a bunch of eucalyptus around, too.  Unike Central Park it has a few more buildings – botanical gardens, conservatory of flowers, the de Young museum, and the aforementioned Academy of Sciences.  Doug our tour guide was very entertaining, did a great job and told of heaps of different things compared to when we took the same route of the Big Bus yesterday.

Yet another view of Transamerica Pyramid

It’s not only Amsterdam that has leaning buildings

A different angle of City Hall

A typical street scene

Tiny cars you could hire if you don’t value your life, I reckon!

 Entry to the academy was far from cheap ($40 each!)  but it sure had a lot in it to see. A large aquarium, a simulated rainforest environment full of butterflies (lovely!), and a small enclosure with a few turtles and an albino alligator. And tasty lunch. Most interesting of all though was the “earthquake simulator” – where you stood, ostensibly in an old San Francisco house, which then shook in a way similar to the 1989 earthquake, and then, the much larger 1906 earthquake that destroyed much of the city. The simulation only went for 30 seconds, the actual 1906 event went for 90. Must’ve been terrifying. Thankfully we had solid handrails to grab on to. I won’t be at all upset to totally miss any earthquake here, that’s for certain. 

We then hopped back on the Big Bus – this one felt  like it was suffering imminent mechanical disaster, or the driver was just having gear/shifting trouble. Either way, it was a little disconcerting, though I guess there would be worse places to break down than the middle of the Golden Gate bridge.  Mercifully every time the engine or gearbox sounded like it was ready to part ways with the rest of the bus, the driver coaxed or threatened it back in to action, and we eventually made it back to Union Square.

Perry went back to to hotel, but my adventure continued on. I walked over to the Cable Car Museum. Just an easy 15 minute walk, said the directions on my phone.  Just a few blocks, you know, nothing to worry about.  But as soon as I set off … holy crap. The first four blocks were all uphill. Very uphill.   I did some googling so can now throw the following facts and figures at you.  Out hotel is 28 metres above sea level.  Three blocks later, (corner of Powell and California) it’s 73 metres above sea level.   The fourth block of my journey (corner of California and Mason) – 87 metres above sea level.    So yeah, 60 metres up, in four blocks of travel.  No wonder it took me a while.  For the record, my watch is telling me I climbed the equivalent of 22 flights of stairs today.  Seems legit.  

Steeper than it looks, trust me.

Anyway after much huffing and puffing (but not blowing anybody’s house down), I made it to the museum.  Glad to say it was worth the effort, it was really interesting. And a ‘living museum’ of sorts –  as it’s also the engine house that powers all of the cables for the whole network.  But I’ll probably totally nerd out in too much detail in a seperate blog post later, so if you can skip all the boring technical details of the cable car network. I also walked by the hotel where Tony Bennett first sang “I left my heart in San Francisco”, commemorated with a statue, and a renaming of the street to “Tony Bennett Way”

 Luckily the trip home was easier – I took a different route so could swing by the “Ross for Less” cheap clothes shop again to buy a new belt.  (No the last one didn’t die due to being under too much pressure, thanks very much!! 😀 ).  

For dinner we walked a very small way up the Powell St hill to Maru Sushi, a lovely Japanese restaurant.  Friendly service, awesome miso soup, and great food, at good value.  Recommended!  (Yes, believe it to not, we didn’t go off to a show tonight).

Then it was time to me back to room and pack up ready to leave tomorrow. 😦  As I’m sitting in the hotel room writing this, I can hear a cable car going past, the gripman (driver) dinging the bell like there’s no tomorrow.  (Apparently there’s even a yearly bell ringing competition, go figure).  Re-packing made me realise I (of course) bought way more crap already than I should have – but so be it, we’re on holidays!  I guess it’s also time to reflect a little on our stay in San Francisco.  We’ve been blessed with perfect weather the whole time – even the locals are saying how unusually good it is.  It probably adds a bit of a rose-coloured-glasses tint to the city, but it’s just a lovely place. There’s the natural beauty of the bay, and the Californian redwoods.  There’s the beautiful built environment of mostly early-20th-century housing.  Then there’s the cultural beauty of a city that welcomes, lives and breathes diversity – in places like Castro and beyond.  Like all cities it has its flaws, but there are many, may worse places in the world to spend your time.

Other random things we learnt –  nobody, at all, has a front yard in this city. Backyards are also very uncommon.  But no matter where you live in the whole place, you’re never more than a ten minute walk away from a park.  Just as well, else all the people we saw with dogs would be having some problems.  It’s not all sunshine and happiness – San Francisco has a considerable homeless problem, yes even outside the Tenderloin area.  There are people begging pretty much on every single street corner, and many more just wandering the streets.  According to Doug our Big Bus guide, due to the good quality of care given by all the organisations in the Tenderloin, a lot of other cities provide their homeless and troubled residents with what he called “Greyhound Therapy” – ship ‘em off to San Francisco and let someone else deal with them. Charming.  

What else – now it’s fully legal for medical and recreational purposes, it’s kinda surprising just how often you smell weed being smoked, like, everywhere.  Seriously you can smell more dope here than in Amsterdam. It’s kinda pervasive. It doesn’t have the “coffee shops” like Amsterdam though.  I don’t know you get it – and because I am, at heart, so very boring, I’m not at all interested in finding out.

Maybe this is more an American observation than a San Francisco one…but in Starbucks or anywhere else that needs your name, I shall henceforth be known as Joe.  Nobody understands “John” – yeah, I know, it’s a very challenging name it’s true   But because I don’t say “Jaaaaaaahn,” nobody seems to have a clue what I’m saying, and usually say “Joe?” and I say “Yep sure”.  So there we go.  I’m Joe, pleased to meet you.  The other confusing conversation we’ve had many a time seems to be an evolution of last time’s “thank you”/“of course!” head scratcher.  These days, after saying “thank you”, the response is almost always a cheery “Mm-hmm”.  I still don’t get it, but hey, I am a foreigner after all.  I smile and nod, we go our seperate ways, everyone’s happy.

Tomorrow: Seattle!  But just like last time we visited, I have left at least a little piece of my heart in San Francisco.  I hope, one day, I’ll again have the opportunity to return.

We started the day with some of that mundane but necessary stuff that happens when you’re on holiday – getting  washing done. We patted ourselves on the back for bringing a laundry bag along on the trip (plastic shopping bags just don’t cut it) , and headed off to Vic’s Cleaners, right on Isadora Duncan Lane. Let’s learn about Isadora Duncan (if you can read it).

We found a nearby deli (Dave’s Deli and Bistro) for breakfast.  Dave’s was another “eat and get the hell out” kind of place. No tables, just a very long u-shaped counter that ran the length of the place. They had (gasp) cappuccino – which was maybe a 5 out of 10 on the iScott Coffee Scale. But it least it wasn’t out of a push button machine. My Apple Pancakes, though, were excellent. (hmm, Apple pancakes…. does that make them iPancakes…)

We walked from there back to Market St to get a streetcar. This walk placed us pretty firmly in the Tenderloin district. Tenderloin is San Francisco’s home for the homeless. Where the hopeless can get hope, and the druggies get drugs, and the unsuspecting probably get done over if they don’t have their wits about them. It was a bright Saturday morning but I still found it pretty confronting. Small huddles of people were injecting in the streets, others scouring the gutter for needles, of which there were a few around.

There are plenty of centres to help the homeless around Tenderloin, there are a number of places (both religious and non-religious) that dole out hundreds and hundreds of meals each night to keep the residents going. Maybe I just don’t get out that much, but the walk made me feel pretty uncomfortable. I was glad to be outta there once we turned a corner and the neighbourhood instantly changed, on Market St. 

This morning’s next plan was to pop up to the Castro for a walking tour of the area. I was wondering if we’d have to walk there – this particular streetcar wasn’t having a good day. It’s electrical arm kept falling out of its place on he overhead wire, so the driver had to get out multiple times to power it up again. Upon rounding a corner there was a big clunk, even the driver thought we’d derailed and got out (yet again) to check. But all was well – eventually, we reached the Castro district, with plenty of time to spare before our walking tour was due to start. 

The meeting point for the start of the tour was under the massive rainbow flag. Here, we met Kathy. Tour guide, Civil rights champion, fearless lesbian, and a knowledgeable, passionate, guide. 

She made some very valid points about the creeping fascism of the current political climate, the incitement of hate, and the ways it can enable the erosion of civil rights. 

She showed us some maps, highlighting that even after marriage equality, there are only 21 states where it’s illegal to fire someone because of their sexuality. In the other 29, it seems “oh, you’re gay? You’re  fired” is perfectly acceptable. I might be oversimplifying it, but that’s the message I took from what we were being told today. And this kind of “you’re fired” thing is what religious organisations are fighting so hard to maintain, and extend, in Australia. Fighting so hard to extend the reach of prejudice just doesn’t seem like something a church should be doing. But here we are.  

We learnt a lot about Harvey Milk, and the way that, before him, the US queer population we were mostly known as the “invisible culture”, as being visible meant being arrested, or committed, or killed.  

We saw some sections of the AIDS quilt , never realised before that each panel was made the size of a grave. So many died, but their memory persists. 

The tour came to a close in the place where Harvey Milk and his partner ran a little camera shop. It now houses the human rights campaign, and, being a tourist, I bough some nice t-shirts. Cheers, queers! Here’s a few more pics taken along the way.

Next – down to Pier 39 for lunch, an easy streetcar ride away. Well, easy on a good day. When the streetcars are working. Another streetcar had got itself into a bother, requiring two more streetcars to mount a rescue mission. So we had to take a bit of a walk down to 17th and Noe, where we were assured a streetcar would stop to let us on. If only someone had told the driver. Ah well it wasn’t too much further to Market St to find another one. A slightly interesting part of this breakdown was our streetcar ran for a while down a street not normally used by the network. So, ooh, secret streetcar tracks, folks! 🙂 

Pier 39 was crazy busy. Saturday, great weather, no surprise I guess.  But alas, no sea lions. Five years ago there were hundreds of them. Today, only three were hanging around. We did at least manage to see some pelicans. The sea lions were probably scared off by the massive crowd. Before long, so were we – and besides it was time to pick up the washing (which was nicely done, thanks Vic’s Cleaners!) so off we went. 

We thought we’d brave the temple of all things healthy and virtuous for dinner – that’s right, The Cheesecake Factory. Positioned on the top floor of Macy’s Union Square, I was hoping it might be a bit hidden and out of way and people might not realise it’s there … yeah, as if! The wait for a table was about 30 mins so we hung around.  Surprisingly, around 30 minutes later, our table was ready.  For dinner, I win a prize.  A prize for achieving the impossible.  I walked out of Cheesecake Factory still being able to move, and not feeling fit to burst.  Yay me! 🙂  They have a frankly ridiculous menu of 250 or so non-cheesecake items, plus another 30-odd cheesecakes. See for yourself. It’s crazy.  https://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/menu/desserts/cheesecakes/   I think we were lucky that we didn’t have time for dessert, as just for a change we had a show to go watch.  Tonight:  Soft Power, at the Curran theatre.

I had no idea what to expect, I knew nothing about the show, Perry had found it and thought it would be worth a look.  And of course, he was very right.  At a high level it’s a kind of reversal of The King and I.  It kinda posits the question “What would happen if Hilary Clinton was romanced by a Chinese guy” – though there’s a bit more to it than that.  It starts as a play, exploring and dissecting cultural differences between China and the US, without necessarily passing much in the way of judgement.  It did however get much in the way of laughs – it was very well played.  From the get-go it was clear this was a serious production, with serious acting talent.  Some of them have been in broadway shows, and one (Conrad Ricamora) had a part on TV in “How to get away with Murder”.  Before long it shifts gears and lurches into a musical – through a transition that to me somewhat missed the mark.  It was a bit too convenient, a bit too like a narrator glossing over a scene that may have been difficult to stage and enact, so it was reduced to a monologue on an empty stage.  It was a bit “then, like, some really unexpected stuff happened and that was an excuse to go into fantasyland where everything’s a musical! Yay!”.  So if you’re reading (because of course I’m such a renowned theatre reviewer lol) patch that bit up before you take it to broadway, OK?

Alyse Alan Louis, who played Hilary Clinton, was absolutely brilliant.  Surely she’s destined to be a bigger star.  She can act, she can really dance, and boy, can she sing!  Add to that a perfect sense of comic timing and you have someone who really deserves to go far.  Her introductory number as Hilary really stole the show – the applause just kept going and going, to the point where I think the whole cast started to feel a bit awkward.  It was the highlight of the show for me.  There’s also an excellent number successfully skewering the US ‘electoral college’ voting system.  As they said in the show itself – “this makes no sense to anyone else outside out country”, and yep they’re still pretty much right about that.  Of course, we all know the outcome of that election. Even in musical fantasy land, Hilary was not the winner.  That’s sad. But her reaction, hilarious.  

By the end of Act 1 it really had me wondering – at this point the show had taken  very pro-China stance.  IN the current Australian political climate there’s all they talk of China trying to impost their will on the national discussion, so to speak.  Could this be a similar ting to what the show was doing – was this a direct and clear amp of China exercising its soft power? I guess its a testament to the strength of the show that it leaves you feeling like that at intermission.

In Act 2, we get to the white house – though we don’t get to the president. He remains curiously off-limits in this show.  You could view this as being a bit timid, or potentially a smart move because lets face it everybody else is directly criticising the president at the moment.  But the vice president and his cronies get a good bashing, with the song “A good guy with a gun” – which I’m sure had a good many members of the audience feeling a little uneasy.  But here in left-leaning San Francisco, it was very well received.  

Act 2 also quickly dispels the China soft power motif – with (spoilers!!) Hilary and the Chinese producers relationship failing because he didn’t support democracy.  Hilary’s Democracy torch song was another powerhouse performance, again very impressive.  Before long we lurch out of the musical word and back to the real world of the play.  Again, this was done in a way that was just, well, weird.  You know when something’s comedic but it wasn’t meant to be?  It really robbed the moment of its power.  But by the end of the show, America had clearly won, of course, and the Democracy song was reborn, rebuilt, powered up polished and embellished by the full cast, to make it ridiculously clear just whose side we are on.  However It’s parting thought certainly rings true for many in modern America: “Democracy will break your heart” 

So overall a great show.  I don’t know if it has legs, if it will go far, it may be too topical and too ‘now’ to have a long life ahead of it. But I do hope it’s seen by many more people.  They may just learn something.

Tomorrow, sadly, is our last full day in San Francisco.  Already!

Right next the hotel is a place called Sears World Famous Food. Not quite sure how famous it is around the world, but there was a big queue out the front when we walked by yesterday. So today, we had to visit, if only to see what the fuss was about. Founded in 1938, it was hard to tell if it’s old-school appearance was all genuine or more recently re-created. Service, however was super quick. Seconds after we sat down someone came to take our order. I’m sure the cup of coffee was delivered to table before I even got to the second syllable of  “coffee”.  Interactions with our server were short and sharp. Friendly, but curt. Very soon a short stack of pancakes arrived and my coffee was topped up. Bottomless drinks really seem to be a thing here. Pancakes were delicious, Perry enjoyed his Eggs Benedict. After about the second mouthful, the bill was placed on the table. So, we got the hint that his wasn’t the kind of place to linger over a slow breakfast. Eat up, get out, don’t wait about.  And so, after a delicious breakfast, we did just that. (Sorry, was too hungry, no brekky photos, but you probably know what pancakes look like)

Today, we decided to get out of the city. Time to visit to a little town called Cupertino.  It mightn’t mean much to normal people, but nerds like me know it very well – it’s the home of Apple.

It was about two hours away – first we took another one of those electric trolley buses, then a Caltrain train, then there was a bus at the other end as well. 

The first bus was easy, then we made the connection to the train with a few seconds to spare. The trains are pretty funny looking to us Sydney-siders. It’s a double-decker, but the doors are on the lower floor level. Train stations here have platforms that are like two foot high if they’re lucky. The train trip was a bit over an hour, travelling through a number of famous Silicon Valley towns that became home to big companies, like:

• Palo Alto (Hewlett-Packard)
• Mountain View (Google),
• Sunnyvale (AMD, Atari, Silicon Graphics)
• Menlo Park (Facebook)

From carpark to platform in two steps. Nice!

Burlingame station looking a little bit fancy

Another double-decker

We reached Santa Clara station, saw the wait for the bus was 20 mins, and also saw there was no way to top up our Clipper (i.e Opal) cards. It’s hard to believe Sydney is ahead of anywhere in the world for public transport, but I’m pretty sure you can top up your opal card at any station on the network. Here it seems only certain stations have a Clipper top-up machine. And to top up online? That’ll take a few days. Seems kinda crazy but that’s how it is. Anyway to cut out the 20 minute wait for the bus (and to cut out the 20-odd stops the bus would make), we got an Uber from Santa Clara to Apple Park. Much easier, and well worth the $15. 

And then, there we were. Apple Park. The giant spaceship. The place where they’re busily designing the next generation of iThings. 

The visitor’s centre

A glimpse of the Apple Park spaceship

Of course us mere mortals are not allowed into the big spaceship building itself. There’s a visitors centre across the road, so in we went. First thing we saw was the Café, and mercifully it wasn’t crowded. So on this warm day getting a cool drink was the first priority. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the menus were on iPads.  Ordering, however, was done the old-fashioned way – talking to actual humans  (yeah, somehow I coped 🙂 ).  Drinks were paid for with Apple Pay, of course. 

Menu at the Apple Visitor Centre cafe

They don’t sell apples. But they do sell drinks.

They had a great AR (augmented reality) experience at the visitor centre – basically they had a big tabletop sculpture of Apple Park and its surrounds – but when viewed through one of the supplied iPads, it transformed into an interactive, detailed view of the buildings and surrounds – you could (virtually) pop the tops  off the buildings to look inside, or see how all the solar power was generated, or watch how the aircon systems dealt with the hot and cold air as efficiently as possible (because gee, aircon is fascinating…..?)

Never missing an opportunity to part you from their money, there was also a big Apple Store there. It also stocks some merchandise only available at this one store. Being the massive Apple fanboy that I am, of course I bought some stuff. 🙂

Upstairs there was a rooftop terrace, giving a few more glimpses of Apple Park itself, plus a chance to get auburn rid you stay up there too long. Again we’ve been blessed with another beautiful day of Californian weather – very clear, dry, sunny, and warm. 

A glimpse of the Apple Park spaceship

After enjoying our time there and paying our respects (ok, our dollars) to the Apple retail gods, it was time to move on. We caught another Uber to the station, and back on the train to San Francisco. This time we chose to sit upstairs. Things got weird. There’s a row of single seats on each side, and the middle just has big luggage areas, and a void where you can see straight through to the bottom half of the carriage. Again, as a Sydney-sider, it sure looks weird, seems like a big waste of useful space. Still, it’s a comfy enough space to spend an hour and a bit. Even if it is … weird. 

Upstairs on the train. Weird.

I also took a walk this arvo down to the Union Square Apple store. (because surely I hadn’t Apple’d enough already today…) Its front doors are like three storeys high – opening the whole shop out to the street. It also has a nice courtyard out the back, and a San Francisco touch – a sculpture about Love. Aww…

Thie middle of the shop – that’s where the doors go.

This evening we caught a streetcar down near the waterfront for tonight’s show – Priscilla Queen of the Desert, as performed by a local queer community theatre troupe.

Dare I say this theatre company might not have quite the same access to financial resources when compared to the professional production. What it may lack in money it makes up for in heart. And painted cardboard. But geez, those accents! Somewhere between Ameri-English-Kiwi-Greek-Stralian at times. Mind you even professional broadway performers can’t nail non-American accents (Kinky Boots, I’m looking st you!) so hey what can you do, at least they gave it a red hot go. They’ve stuck very closely to the script – so there’s probably a theatre full of people still wondering … who the hell are Scott and Charlene?

It might be tempting to mock all forms of community theatre just because it’s kinda easy to do so. But fair? Not at all. These people are out there, doing it, living their dream and putting on a show. So I say more power to them.

Getting home from Priscilla was a bit of a drag (see what I did there?), what with having to wait 30 mins for a streetcar.  I think we blew the days Uber budget already with the Apple trips. So, we waited, watched life’s rich pageant pass by til the streetcar finally arrived to take us home.  And here we are, ready for another fun adventure tomorrow.

After a big day yesterday, today started at a much slower pace.

I’ve set up the IT Department in the hotel room so I’m all good to go, blog-wise 🙂

We had breakfast in the hotel, around 10:00, (it was pretty good value!) and decided to follow our tradition for pretty much every city we visit – a hop-on, hop-off bus tour.

The Big Bus  was very opulent but luckily we were able to score two seats on the upper (open) deck, so we had a good view – and a good amount of sun (i.e. too much!).  It was interesting to learn a bit about the history of San Francisco, and little facts such as – if you’re on flat land, it’s reclaimed landfill.  After the great earthquake of 1906, no new wooden buildings were allowed to built – so if you see a wooden building count yourself lucky as it’s one of the few areas oft owned that survived the fires after the earthquake.  The one surprising thing I learned – you can’t get buried in San Francisco.  Nope, you have get buried way out of town, no burials permitted in San Francisco.  

So here’s a bunch of photos from the streets of San Francisco…

City Hall

Going over the bridge

Kinda like Flatiron in NYC

Obligatory cable car shot!

AT&T or GayT&T?

One thing I’ve noticed on the roads (apart from the fact that everybody drives on the wrong side of the road 🙂 ) is the amount of Teslas around.  Back home they’re still as rare as hen’s teeth but here they just seem to be everywhere.  I guess it’s all those technology companies and the money they bring in.

We took things at a bit of a slower pace today – I think the whole loop around on the bus took around three hours, so that didn’t require a lot of effort.  After that we grabbed a hotdog from a street vendor for lunch, and went over to Ross For Less, an exclusive San Francisco shopping boutique. Lol, just kidding, it’s just a massive clothing discount store, but got some good bargains including a pair of Skechers sneakers for $30.  Bargain!!

We then went back to the hotel room to get ready for the first show of the trip – Beach Blanket Babylon, apparently a San Francisco institution.   So much so, that they renamed the street the the theatre is on “Beach Blanket Babylon Boulevarde”

We can tick off yet another mode of transportation – trolley bus. They’re all over the place, looking kinda like a bizarre bus/locust hybrid with the big legs sprouting from the back to hold the power lines above. Still, they’re faster, smoother, quieter and a whole bunch less smelly than your standard diesel bus, so it’s a great idea as far as I’m concerned.

Dinner was at “Michaelangelo” a great Italian restaurant – solid, traditional, delicious. And bottomless cups of iced tea – bonus! At the end of the meal, along with the bill, we were given a plate of gummi bears and a plate of ridiculously tasty almond biscuits – a lovely way to finish dinner. A good tip was assured.

Ah, the whole tipping thing. Just accept that everything will cost at least 20% more, and deal with it. Simple, really! Hopefully we’re doing our bit to shake the reputation that Australians are lousy tippers.

Next stop, Beach Blanket Babylon.  We didn’t know much about what to expect with this one, other than apparently  its one f the San Francisco “must do” things when you’re visiting. (though who knows, maybe it was their website that said that …).  The show has been running since 1974, and moved to its current location, the very lovely Club Fugazi, in 1975.  All red velvet curtains and distinct ‘old theatre smell’, it was kind reminiscent of the theatre from the Muppet Show.  Only small, I think it would be lucky to hold around 300 people at the very most. But that ensures a good view of the stage from pretty much everywhere. The show itself was an absolute riot. pretty much zero storyline, but just song-and-dance number after song-and-dance number, costume change after costume change, the pace did not let up the whole way through.  And it was stupidly funny – they must see updating the show very frequently – there was Melania saying “I don’t care .. do you?” so the writers must really be on the call.  A great many American political figures were skewered, probably none more so that Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who in an instant costume change transformed straight into Kim Jong-Un.  Glad to see Harvey Weinstein getting ripped into as well, and the Bill Cosby jokes were “are they going to go there? OK, so they totally went there”…  terribly funny, giving the ridicule that, well, he deserves.   The whole show was ridiculously funny, all of the performers had incredibly strong voices, and the costumes – particularly the hats, for the show is famous for big hats, were just stunning.  Except maybe the french poodles, eh, whatever, it was all good.  A thoroughly engaging way to spend a good hour and half.  Perhaps it’s not for everyone –   you could quickly read the political leanings of the room – for some reason the people next to us didn’t find the Sarah Palin or the ‘von Trump Family’ jokes amusing.  Not even sure why they came to the show to be honest, they should’ve known better.

After the show it was a simple 1.3km walk back to hotel.  Easy perhaps – but in this city, not so much.  With hills that go up hill for there city blocks at a time, it took a little while, but we made it.  No wonder the cable car was a necessity in the city’s younger days.  Speaking of which, even the the streets are dead quiet, the cable isn’t – you can hear it rumbling and buzzing away just beneath your feet, especially around corners where it’s getting nudged around by a whole bunch of pulleys and wheels and things to keep it where it needs to be.  Even late at night the cable cars were still full of tourists – glad we got our cable car rides out of the way last time back in 2013 🙂

We stopped in at Walgreens near the hotel to once again marvel at the fact that a tub of Ben & Jerry’s is only $6 – and they sell it by the slice now, which is good for people like me who have no concept of portion control when it comes to ice cream 😀

And so, another great day was had by all. Looking forward to whatever tomorrow brings.

As you know our flight was delayed four hours, so a further 20 minutes wait wasn’t a big deal, we eventually took off a bit after 5.

We were on an old 747-400 – but I gotta admit it was a bit of a novelty to climb the “stairway to heaven” to get to the small business class cabin on the upper deck. With only about 8 rows of that, it was like being on your own mini-plane.

Old-school Qantas business class, upstairs on the 747

Legroom test: Passed!

Ready to leave Sydney

Qantas staff were great once again, very friendly, and the usual champagne-upon-boarding was a welcome touch.

Since the plane was about 100 years old or so, there were no USB charging ports on board (oh, the horror!) but somehow we survived. The seats were the old pod style – comfy enough even if the bed wasn’t quite up to scratch, but more of that in a bit.

The onboard entertainment was entertaining in its own way…once the fold-out screen finally decided to turn on after a bit of prodding. It even had games… from the 90s. Breakout, snake, solitaire… real cutting edge stuff. Even the handset looks like it could’ve been an old Nokia from the same era. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful – after all I did get though a whole level of Breakout 🙂

Breakout! it’s time to party like it’s 1993 or so…

Could well be a Nokia used to control the Entertainment system

Service may have been excellent but the food was a wee bit underwhelming – a chicken focaccia sandwhich that might’ve been prepared by the same team that did breakfast st Auckland – really dry and a bit overdone. But this was followed by ice cream, which of course fixes everything.

Shortly after dinner all the lights in the cabin suddenly went out – so either there was an electrical problem, or it was time to go to sleep (don’t worry, it was the latter.)

They kindly supplied a soft seat covering and a mini-doona, in addition to qantas-branded pyjamas (nah, didn’t try them). The seat stretches itself right out, but it doesn’t lay completely flat, you still lie down at a bit of angle. So eventually you yourself sinking down to the end of the seat, and have to crawl your way back up. They’d set the aircon to somewhere between ‘bake’ and ‘roast’ so it took ages to get to sleep coz of the heat. Still, ended up getting some good chunks of sleep until about 2.5 hours before landing. I think getting rocked to sleep by the constant low/level turbulence was actually helpful – nearly the whole flight we were gently jostled to and fro, up and down… shaken but not stirred, I guess. 🙂

Anyway before we know it it was time for (a very nice) brekky and swiftly after, hello San Francisco! (Or hello LA if you believed the initial cabin announcement after landing)

I can see a runway – must be nearly there.

The queue at customs was ridonculous – took us a good two hours to get through I think. But once that was over our car turned up (a Chevy Ginormous of some sort) and whisked us away to the lovely Chancellor Hotel. We spent he 30 minutes waiting for the room to be prepared, by popping in to the nearby Apple shop (beautiful!!) an then a drink at Starbucks, which are of course everywhere. Iced coffee doesn’t have milk. But it was really tasty.

Starbucks Iced Coffee

The hotel room is really nice, not large but a bit bigger than I was expecting, so that’s always a bonus. Not that we had long to check it out – once we got in it was time to turn around and head out to the 4th of July fireworks harbour cruise we’d booked ages ago.

On the way I topped up my ‘Clipper’ card (like an Opal card, an Oyster, a Suica card, etc) – was pleasantly surprised to see my card from 5 years ago still worked a treat.

The boat , San Francisco Belle was really big – an old paddle steamer. Except it was built in 1994 and runs on diesel, but near enough. It was plenty spacious and the buffet dinner was nice. Sun didnt set til after 8:30, a nice change from Sydney at the moment. Sailing underneath the Golden Gate Bridge was a treat, and of course I took way too many pictures.

Considering our July 4 has been going for something like 36 hours at this point, we’re still standing though by 9pm a bit of tiredness was starting to sink in.

Still we hung in there for the fireworks, which were impressive, but no Sydney NYE of course 🙂 It was bloody freezing out there – I’m sure the breeze was straight from the arctic, geez!

Once the boat returned to port at 10:30 – we were very good and did the 30 minute walk back up to the hotel, while on the way, crossing a quiet street, there was small rustle, a quiet nose of rubber on asphalt, and a little man whooshed by, his grey hair streaming out behind his slightly battered top hat in a kind of wavy celebration of the speed he had attained.  It was then we also realised – he was riding a unicycle.  Of course.

Welcome to San Francisco.

After an uneventful taxi ride and an interesting interrogation (ok, asked a few polite questions) at the airport before checking in, we’re in the swanky Qantas first class lounge again (thanks Perry!) having a fancy lunch and waiting for our delayed flight now leaving at a quarter to five. All good though, still due in San Francisco at 1pm.

While it’s very exciting to be going away on this big adventure, I have to say that I really will miss this cranky little face, doing her best “Yeah whatever” impression as we bid our farewells:

While we were having lunch, our plane arrived – if it’s only arriving around 3, I guess that explains why we couldn’t fly out on it at 12:45…

BTW these are the desserts we had in the lounge – OMG.

Anyway, that’s enough from me, exciting adventures await us! See ya in San Francisco!

Once again, we’re off on another big adventure, and with any luck this little blog will help take everyone along for at least some of the ride.

Packing was all well and good, but remember it’s always good to check on things before chucking them in the suitcase, as we had one casualty… sometime between last June and yesterday, Perrys new camera (bought at the Duty Free on the way to NZ last year) suffered a broken screen, making it pretty much useless.

Otherwise, all good, and after bidding the cat a fond farewell, we jumped in a Taxi and sat in traffic for approximately forever.  OR at least that’s what it felt like.  All good as we were way ahead of schedule, and still reached the airport maybe 20 minutes before the check-in desk for our flight even opened.  So no dramas there, got the formalities out of the way and officially all checked in for our flight to New Zealand?

But weren’t we going to the US and Canada?

You’ve probably all already heard this story – if so just skip the next paragraph or two.  In summary, during our Europe trip in 2013 we found we could save a substantial amount of money by flying from home Stockholm instead of flying home from London.  So Perry wondered if it applied the other way around – was there some cheaper way of getting from Australia to the USA..maybe via Hawaii?  After a bit of checking and trying various options, he found that if we went from New Zealand to San Francisco, the rate would be about one third of the far compared to going from Sydney to San Francisco.  The weird part is that, either way, we’ll be on the exact same plane leaving Sydney.  But by getting a flight from Auckland to Sydney first, the whole only costs about a third.  So yep we get two flights, for a third of the place.  Doesn’t make a lick of sense but hey it means we can go business, so we’d be mad not to.  The cheaper rate more than covers the price of a flight to Auckland and a night’s accommodation.  (We weren’t brave enough to try a flight in and out of Auckland on the same day, just in case there were delays).

So where was I? Oh yep we checked in for the flight, spent a long time at the Tourist Refund Scheme office so I could get the tax back on a lens I bought for the trip.  Then in a case of deja vu, Perry bought a new camera at the Duty Free shop.  Hopefully this one lives a bit longer than the last one.  Then we off to hang out with the fancy people in the Qantas First Class lounge.  This is all thank to Perry and the amazing amount of work travel he’s done in the last few years – his frequent flyer status allows him to bring a guest to the First Class lounge even if were not on a first class flight.  He’s done a lot to earn this privilege. I, on the other hand, have done, well, nothing.  But it’s not like I’m going to turn down such an invitation!

Love the old ‘click-clack’ departures board

Once nice thing I noticed about the lounge (other than the delicious food, friendly service, beautiful decor, the old-school ‘click clack’ departures board,  the chance to pretend I’m a rich person,  etc, etc) was that they seem to be taking an environmental awareness to heart here – nothing was served in plastic, even the serviettes were cloth.  The only single-use item I saw was the sachet of sugar I put in my (barista-made, of course) coffee.  (Sorry Scott I didn’t get a photo, but I’d rate it an 8 out of 10). << Quick shout out to my very good friend Scott who is currently touring the coffee (And the sights) of Europe, his blog – It’s all about the coffee, is a terrific read.  

Before too long it was time to board.  We were flying with LATAM air, formerly known as LAN airlines, in a 787 Dreamliner.  Well I can’t help but unleash my inner snob and say it is always nice when you have a chance to Turn Left after boarding.  The plane was nicely outfitted with wooden (ok probably ‘wood-look’) flooring in parts, and super big comfy seats – everything was kind low-set, which gave the cabin a great sense of airiness and space.  The quality of service was just brilliant, champagne upon boarding (not that it was wonderful, but whatevs), the Customer Service Manager took time to personally introduce herself to everyone in the cabin. The crew member attending to us kept apologising for her English even though it was fine.  They were all extremely welcoming and really made you feel comfortable.  

Our 787

Ginormous and super comfy.

Champagne upon boarding

It definitely passes the legroom test!

And here we are!

Cute little bag with Socks, eye mask, earplugs

Delicious lunch and pudding to die for

Shortly after we were up in the air – the 787 is nice and quiet and I think their boasts about having better air quality etc really are true, it was a very nice place to be (but in row 1, what’s not to like?!).  Lunch was a delicious warmed sandwich o prosciutto and cheese on rye, with a bread roll, a salad, and the most luscious chocolate pudding with passionfruit and mango, so rich that even I of all people couldn’t finish it off.  It felt like a really short flight, which is always a good thing.  Even though they had tone of entertainment options on board I watched Hannah Gadsby’s ‘Nanette’ that I’d downloaded earlier on Netflix. It’s part funny, part touching, and all important and definitely worth a watch.

Next thing you know it was touchdown time and here we were – New Zealand!  Land of jandals, chilly bins, Jacinda Arden, and people who show the indigenous population and their culture some decent respect.  After a bit of a adventure ride on the Skybus, we made it alive to the city proper, and into our hotel – very nice!  Again, taking advantage of Perry’s work travels, we were able to get an upgraded room, free welcome drinks, and a free brekky.  This is proof if ever you need it – hard work does pay off!  The fact I get to share in the spoils is something for which I’ll be forever grateful.  And I took a video of the day turning into night:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSEoXH5Xnlw

Dinner was at a restaurant we really enjoyed in Auckland last year, Monsoon Poon.  This time we learnt our lessons of order way way too much, and only ordered way too much instead.  Delicious combo plate of corn fritters, squid, curry puffs, chicken wings rice paper roll, and a dish of Tandoori Chicken salad.  Awesome stuff.  And since holidays == cocktails, had to have one of those as well.  “Ho Chi Gin” – Gin, chili syrup, star anise … interesting and tasty!

Still love this sign that show you how many good people are jumping on their bikes instead of getting in their car

Now no trip to New Zealand would be complete without visiting New Zealand Natural ice cream – so despite being quite full, off we went and fulfilled our duty to the nation by enjoying some Hokey Pokey and some Boysenberry.

So, it’s the first day almost done, and the holiday is off to a cracking start!  A flight that could really only be described as perfect, a beautiful city, a delicious meal, and of course, the very best travelling companion, ever.  USA here we come (eventually)!