San Francisco, CA

Today was a big tour, but fortunately we still had time for Jan at the Inn to cook us breakfast, he sure does a mean scrambled egg. Delicious. We choose another one of SF’s many transport options today to get to the start of our tour – we took the train. Much quicker than the streetcar, but without all the cool retro goings-on. The tour started by passing through the ‘tenderloin’ district – so named, would you believe, for the way policemen were paid their ‘hush money’ to forget about the bars that were serving alcohol during prohibition. It’s a bit of a rundown area with many homeless people about, mostly due to a large shelter and soup kitchen nearby. However gentrification is setting in and apparently the face of the tenderloin district is changing pretty rapidly. Our guide knew where the best vantage points in town were – alas he didn’t know how to control the weather and get rid of the fog, but that’s ok. I guess it’s an upside for a city that has such dramatic hills – it’s not hard to find high-up parts that have a great outlook. I was glad we visited the Haight-Ashbury district, the centre of the hippy movement back in the day. I guess times have moved on and there’s not so much evidence of it now, but it was still interesting to see where Jimi Hendrix had lived, and Janis Joplin. We also learnt about the painted ladies. No, it’s not a case of too much makeup, but basically an Edwardian or Victorian era house that has been painted with more than three colours. I guess that makes this here Inn on Castro a painted lady too. (As a side note it was interesting that the Americans describe their architecture in terms of English monarchs!). Once again it was amazing to see so many cute little houses in one city – walking or driving the streets just shows beautiful house after beautiful house after beautiful house… It really is a wonderful looking city, both up close, and from a distance. Thankfully we stopped at Alamo Square, the park that offers that great picture postcard shot of a row of houses on a gentle hill, seen many a time on TV and in the movies. And for once, it really is as pretty in real life as it is on the telly. (Take that, LA!) While passing through Pacific Heights, also known as millionaire’s row, we saw homes of the rich and famous, like Larry Ellison of Apple, and Sir Jony Ive of Apple. Lovely grand big old homes, but still with some killer sets if steps to get to them, like many of the houses in a city as hilly as this one. The weather was quite Melbourne-like, i.e. four seasons in one day. We stopped in a park renowned for its great views of the Golden Gate Bridge… Though when we visited we could barely even see the bottom of a short pier through the thick thick fog. Within fifteen minutes when were driving along the bridge itself (we got to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge! Yay!), the sunshine pouring in the bus windows was making things quite warm. Again our driver came good on his knowledge of quality vantage points. After crossing the bridge, and deftly wielding the tour bus up a series of steep and bendy roads, we had the chance to see nearly all the bridge, watching the fog ebb and flow to obscure and reveal the southern pylon – which happened surprisingly quickly. One minute it wold be there and literally the next minute the fog would envelop it again. We could also clearly hear the fog horns bellowing out their warning to anyone crazy enough to be trying to sail through all that. It was a breathtaking view of a bridge still standing proudly for 76 years. For a change of pace we then headed to Muir Woods – a national park that was lucky to get created. Fortunately a very rich Mr Muir had the foresight to buy the land when he saw just how much of the local redwood forests had been lost to logging. Legal wrangling from a water company, that wanted to flood the valley containing the trees, very nearly succeeded. The only way it was saved was for Mr Muir to donate the whole parcel of land to the federal government so it could immediately be declared a national monument. This is of course what happened and as a result these ancient redwoods are still there for us to enjoy. Considering all this action took place in 1905, John Muir was certainly way ahead of his time when it comes to the conservation movement in general. Thank goodness he succeeded – it was a such a beautiful and quiet place, hard to believe there is a major city so close by. Plenty of incredibly tall redwood trees, and an almost-rainforest feel as they almost completely block out the sunlight with the canopy they form. We didn’t spot any wildlife at all, except when we were done and back the visitor centre and cafe, out pop a couple of cheeky chipmunks to clean up the crumbs dropped by visitors. I must say, chipmunks and nearly as cute as New York squirrels – much more fidgety and difficult to photograph though! Also, much to my surprise, they don’t wear jumpers with their initial on them, and they didn’t sing a single song. Back over the bridge again into San Francisco proper, and the tour was over. But should you ever visit, I can heartily recommend taking a tour from”Dylan’s Tours”. For dinner we stayed local to the Castro and dined at “Little Orphan Andy’s” – a diner-style place serving ginormous meals for very little money. Epic meatloaf!! It’s a shame this is our last day in San Francisco – there’s so much more to see and do, I think we’ve barely scratched the surface. But, plans are plans, and move on we must. But we’ll definitely, absolutely be back again some time for a longer visit. I haven’t quite left my heart in San Francisco, but certainly leave with a great fondness for such a beautiful, liveable, relaxed and friendly place. Next… We’ll be up at 5am. Dammit!

San Francisco, CA

Another early start today, well, out of the hotel by 7am, if that counts as early. Perry had read on tripadvisor that, when going ton avatars, it’s best to be on the first boat if possible. Each boat can hold up to 600 tourists, and after a few boards arrive you can imagine things might get bit hectic. So, on to the F-Line streetcar once again which took us right down to Pier 33 from where we departed. It’s only abut a ten minute trip, as Alcatraz itself is only a mile and a half off the San Francisco coast. It’s an interesting place – former prison of course, but also a former point of occupation for the American Indians, who took over Alcatraz from 1969-1971, an event seen as a bit of a turning point for making more aware of the plight of the American Indian population. Apparently to get to the cell house at the top of island is equivalent to a 13 storey climb. Fortunately do to gentle slopes and plenty of places to stop and take pictures, it didn’t feel like that at all. There was long audio tour of the cellhouse itself, where everyone wandered around with headphones on being directed here and there – it was interesting to hear about the history, the conditions, and hearing how it all unfolded while standing I front of the very cells where prisoners were kept really helped give you a sense of what it mus have been like. Th exercise yard must have been doubly grim – not only was it freezing as the bitter winds swirled around, you could also see all of San Francisco laid out in from of you just a mile and a half away – a constant reminder to prisoners of what they were missing out on. And how do you escape from Alcatraz? Easy, just pop back on the boats that sails back to San Francisco every thirty minutes. We did just that, and headed back to the Pier 39 tourist Mecca for a bite to eat,and to spend more time watching the sea lions. I’m sure all the territorial squabbling is a big deal and serious business for them, but for us tourists, it’s and endless source of entertainment. Fortunately the restaurant we chose for lunch had views of the seals from where we were sitting – it really was a case of dinner and a show 🙂 After lunch a light rain had started to fall, so back on one of beautiful old streetcars of the F-Line, and back to the Inn. I didn’t previously know how close we were to the F-Line, and how close the F-Line is to everything in San Francisco – we couldn’t have chosen a better place if we tried. It also makes me think Sydney will have a lot to gain as the light rail system expands. It’s Memorial Day here in the US – a similar idea to Anzac Day at home, but treated in a very different way. It’s much more celebratory which seems a little strange – it’s tradition to have a big BBQ with friends, and all the shops are advertising big Memorial Day sales, and stay open for extended hours. Very different to the more sombre, reflective approach we have for Anzac Day. This afternoon was a great,opportunity to and fulfil a photo challenge – thanks Mum, hope you liked the pictures of houses. It made me realise just how much diversity there is in this neighbourhood, so many different styles of house just in the surrounding two or three streets. Cold damp weather demands hearty Italian food and crazy waiters, so we returned to The Sausage Factory for both of the above, and weren’t disappointed on either front. Alas, the creme brûlée trucks has moved on to other pastures, but luckily Hot Cookie is still nearby – a tiny little shop that sells delicious bickies and is always busy. And has a wall full of little photos of of customers posing in nothing but Hot Cookie undies, because… well who knows, and welcome to Castro! We are going on a tour tomorrow, so off to bed now to be for another early start. Goodnight!

San Francisco, CA

By special request, old terraces. Hi Mum! 🙂

San Francisco, CA

No tours today, so we started with an delicious home-cooked breakfast at the ‘Inn’, and met some of the other folks staying there. It’s funny, all the Americans couldn’t quite fathom the idea of taking a 14 hour flight anywhere, some of them didn’t much enjoy their two hour flight to San Francisco. Guess we won’t be seeing them in Sydney any time soon! We jumped on the “F-Line” streetcar again and took it all the way to the waterfront. There was lot going on at Pier 39 – lots of shops, lots of tour boats taking off, and lots and lots of sea lions! They were playing in the water and sunning themselves on pontoons set up near the pier. We could’ve spent hours watching them fighting over the pontoons, barking and hissing and trying to push each other in to the water. Size matters in sea lion land – when one of the really big ones would surface on to a pontoon, all the others would scatter lest they get slapped out of the way. This was despite the fact that almost half the pontoons were completely empty. Eventually we moved on, checking out the shops at pier 39, and walking by all the other piers, and a series of market stalls, before getting stuck in THE tourist activity for San Francisco – riding a cable car. Of course, every other tourist in town had the exact same idea – so we were in for a bit of a wait. An hour later, on we get and off it goes. It’s noisy, rough, but after about 130 years of service, entirely forgivable. Considering the hills it has to climb (equal too if not exceeding the best streets Engadine could throw at us), it does an amazing job, gripping on to the under-road cable for dear life and processing along at a stately constant 9.5 miles per hour no matter what the terrain. Glad we weren’t among the ‘hangers-on’ riding on the running boards though. When two cable cars pass each other, boy do they pass close! No wonder the gripman (driver) calls out to everyone when they are about to pass a cable car coming the other way. At the other end of the trip (near Fishermans Wharf) we stepped off the cable car, and joined the queue to get on for the return journey. I guess the trouble with century-old infrastructure is that it does have to be babied a bit. To limit the strain on the cable itself and the motors that drive it, only a certain number of cars can be in service at any one time. So when the road traffic builds up, it can take a while for each new car to be deployed… To cut a long story short we waited nearly 90 minutes to get back on. But the luck of he draw (or the queue) worked in our favour as we were near the head of the queue when it came time to board, so we were lucky enough to get the prime seats at the front, facing outward, for a good view on the trip back. After (finally) returning home, we headed out for dinner – there are dozens of restaurants in the Castro so we’re spoiled for choice. We settled on Japanese. As for dessert – well, what city would be complete without its own roving Creme brûlée food truck? Yep, like a posh Mr Whippy but not, all it serves is mase-to-order Creme brûlée in various flavours and variations. I had a standard vanilla, and Perry opted for s’mores. That’s a chocolate Creme brûlée, with mini marshmallows on top, which are them blow-torched, and topped with crumbled cookie pieces. When I say made-to-order, the custard component is already made, but the sugar-and-blowtorch part is done right there in the truck, ensuring the top has that proper ‘crack’ when you dig the spoon in. Lovely. We have a bit of an early start tomorrow for a tour – goodnight!

San Francisco, CA

Another early start – up at 5am to ensure we reached the airport in plenty of time. After the seemingly customary minor delay and gate change, we were on our way. One nice things about the design of today’s plane – we finally had the opportunity to “turn left” after boarding! Within minutes of getting away from the airport one word sprang to mind: Character. Rows and rows of lovely old terraces somehow clinging to ridiculously steep hills. Before long we were at our own lovely old terrace – the “Inn On Castro”, a terrace converted to a small hotel. And sure enough it too is full of character. A small room, but wood-panelled with a big bay window, even with a glimpse of water in the distance. Off we went for a wander to check out the local area – The Castro is the gay and lesbian centre of town, a bit like Oxford st in Sydney but it covers a few blocks instead of part of a street. And it has trams. And trolley buses. And trains. I didn’t even know cities still had trolley buses, so there you go. We jumped on a tram (ok, a streetcar, not named desire) to see more of town. I’m happy to report it’s so very different to LA. It has a really friendly feel to it, and it felt somehow familiar, a little bit Melbourne – maybe it’s the trams, and the cold. The cold! Yes we were warned, and they were right. The sun is nice but oh that wind is bitter. They even have a Westfield – I thought we’d left San Francisco and ended up in Miranda for a moment. Oh and just for the record I guess curved escalators aren’t so special – this Westfield had them in abundance. For dinner we wandered about, past the delightfully named Squat and Gobble restaurants and the Sit ‘n’ Spin laundromat, to end up at The Sausage Factory, where an hilarious waiter brought forth the most delicious Italian food, along with, to use his words, “a dirty joke to help ease digestion”. I won’t repeat it here, but yes, I think it served its purpose – I’m not sure was more funny – the joke itself, or the fact we were being told it by a waiter in the middle of a beautiful, oak-panelled Italian eating establishment. Whatever, he certainly earned his generous tip that night. San Francisco, so far it’s been a delight!

Hollywood, CA

We had no plans for today – just to take it easy, have a free day to wander around and do whatever. That can present a bit of a challenge in a city that is really large, very spread out, and somewhat lacking when it comes to public transport options. We eventually decided West Hollywood looked nice when we’d gone past it on our tours, so we jumped in a taxi and headed over to the corner of Santa Monica Boulevarde and Melrose Avenue. We walked into a supermarket and one of staff quickly identified us as being Australian – not because we were yelling “Crikey! stone the flamin’ crows, Ailsa!”, but because, like all Australians (apparently) our jaws hit the floor when we noticed the price of alcohol. A 1.75 litre bottle of Smirnoff for $14? If you buy a six pack, yes it’s only $14 a bottle. Amazing. We walked on, over the rainbow pedestrian crossings that weren’t doing anything to ‘endanger public safety’ – which is the ******** reason Duncan Gay gave for ripping up Sydney’s one… what a stupid excuse. After that we eventually (this is so not New York!) found another taxi to take us back to our end of town. I hadn’t ridden in a Prius before, so it was kinda fun watching the dashboard report when we were running on petrol, and when the engine would shut down and we ran solely on electricity. There isn’t much of a language barrier here – but there is still one conversation I’ve had many times but never quite understood. It goes like this. “Thank you.” “Of course!” Huh? My best guess is that it’s short for “of course you are welcome”… but to my Australian ears it still sounds quite odd. But hey I guess we sound a little weird to most of the ears around this city, so certainly not judging. So that’s about it for our time in LA. To be honest, not quite sure what to make of the place. For a city that seems to be full of glitz and glamour every time you see it on TV, the reality on the street is pretty different. Even the glamour spots like the Dolby Theatre and Rodeo Drive lack the expected sparkle. Ultimately I guess we’re just passing through, so maybe we never had the opportunity to know the real LA – if ‘real’ is a term you could attach to LA. It had its wonderful moments – the Yamashiro farmers market was the highlight for me, just because it showed that there is more to this town than smog and people asking for money. So it can be a nice place if you k ow where to look. Or if you’re a major movie star. Would I be back? I know I haven’t seen all LA has to offer, but for the time being… It’ll do. Another early start tomorrow morning for the flight outta here… Goodnight!

Los Angeles, CA

Today’s tour was tops! Called “LA Sites and Bites”, it started in the delightfully swanky Roosevelt Hotel, built in 1925 and still looking lovely. It was also the home of the first Academy Awards in 1929.

We were lead along some of the Walk of Fame, learning a bit about it – for instance, anyone can nominate someone for a star on the walk of fame, but who actually makes the cut is determined by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Next stop (well, only a step away) was Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, with all its famous handprints and footprints in concrete. It was cool to see some of the newer ones (Harry Potter stars for instance) but great to see some of the old ones – like Deanna Durbin’s handprint from 1938, and Shirley Temple from 1935.

Once the tour began in earnest we went to some great food spots that we would never have normally found as many were tucked away behind the scenes. “Grub” home of bacon so good they call it “crack bacon” was wonderful, as was pizza at Mario Battali’s “Mozza 2go”. And I now understand why people rave about pastrami, having sampled the pastrami on rye at Greenblatt’s Deli.

John Kerry chocolate was all very fancy and hand-made, and of course yummy so we picked up a few pieces for later. Then on to an Iranian-owned ice cream place for delicious Saffron Rosewater ice cream.

All that, and a drive past some of the famous and infamous LA attractions, from the Whisky a go go to the Viper Room. The tour guide was wonderful and there were only three other people on the tour, all of whom were from Australia. So we had a great time, it was much much more enjoyable than yesterday’s tour.

And we (so far) have had a record day in LA – nobody asked us for money. It might be something to do with the fact that the Roosevelt Hotel (where the tour started and ended) is only two streets away from our hotel.

On Thursdays there’s a Farmer’s Market in the car park of the nearby Yamashiro restaurant – we wandered up there for dinner and … It’s lovely! A couple of gourmet food trucks selling wonderful dinners and desserts, farmers selling their own organic produce (at a farmer’s market? Who knew!), and my favourite part – a young lady, with her typewriter, producing poetry on request. How wonderful! (Think I might head off to Byron Bay, get a typewriter, and set up shop :).

All this took place overlooking the LA basin, plenty of people milling around, enjoying the food and the ambience as the sun was slowly setting, accompanied by the clack-clack-clack of an Olivetti portable bringing forth the word on the street.

Los Angeles, CA

Today was a long tour of some of the sights of LA. While we were on the street waiting for the tour to begin, we again experiences one of the constant realities of LA – people asking us for money. A minute later there was something new – people asking of we wanted to buy drugs. No thank you. Thankfully the tour soon began and we were on the bus and on our way. I shouldn’t be so harsh on people who have fallen through the cracks and ended up having such a tough time living on the streets. But after meeting one every few minutes.., you can’t give everyone a few dollars, you can just hope the city gets itself together and is doing enough to help the people that really need it. One other constant of LA: traffic. Just the thing you want on a bus tour – but hey it’s a genuine LA experience I guess. Our first stop – the famous Venice Beach. To be honest, it left me wondering why it’s so famous. It was a little grubby, a little dodgy, and … people asking us for money. Also there is the also famous Muscle Beach – which ended up lacking both beach, and muscles. So… Not a big fan of Venice Beach, can’t say I’d recommend a visit. Next stop wasn’t Santa Monica Pier. Which was a shame – it looked interesting. So finding our way there might be a task for Friday. One nice looking part of LA was the historical part of downtown East LA – it looked a lot like New York, might explain why I liked it. We stopped in he heart of historical LA – the ole pueblo, they call it. Home of the oldest home in LA. And, umm…. Nobody asked us for money! Moving right along we drove along Mulholland Drive, where all the rich and famous live. I can see why they choose this area, it’s up above the rest of the city with some lovely views – including the Hollywood sign, which was great to see in person. Our last stop on the tour was Rodeo Drive. Home of the fanciest shops where the rich people spend a fortune and it always looks so glamorous and beautiful on the TV. In real life… It looked pretty much like one of the fancy northern or eastern Sydney suburbs. I’m not sure what I was expecting, and it did look flash, just not all that flash. Oh and … people asked us for money. So … Not the most spectacular tour ever. Or dare I say maybe its just not the most spectacular city ever, but hey we still have a few days to figure that out. One nice thing about having a place with a proper kitchen is that tonight we’re eating in … Very classy (but delicious) microwave ready-meals. Yum! And no people asking us for money. 🙂 Tomorrow – another tour, all about food so hey that’s gotta be good!

Los Angeles, CA

It’s probably a good time to re-iterate how amazing the Magic Castle Hotel and its people are. It’s no surprise or has the number 1 rating from Tripadvisor for hotels LA. It’s a little old, far from being swanky, but has the most amazing people working there, and the most amazing services of any hotel I’ve ever stayed in. Free wi-fi, free drinks and snacks on demand (haven’t tried this out yet), free brekky, and the one thing that really floors me – free washing. We dumped two bags at reception this morning, and when we returned tonight, there were freshly washed and folded clothes, delivered to our room, in brown paper packages tied up with string – one of my favourite things, if the song is to be believed. 🙂 Anyway there was a lot more to today than that – a visit to Universal Studios. Perry summed it up nicely on Facebook so I’ve attached a picture of what he said, rather than try to write it all up myself. A big day, but a wonderful one. Really enjoyed the rides, and the opportunity to see real parts of the working movie studios. Tomorrow – another tour. So need to get some sleep to recover from a massive day. Ni-night!

Hollywood, CA

Good bye Vegas – though many of its inhabitants didn’t seem to mind that 4:30am is a ridiculously early morning. There were still plenty of people partying on from the night before. The poker machine floor was a little quieter than usual, but still a number people were playing along happily. Me? As with any 4:30am start, not much to be happy about. At least in this 24 hour town it was no trouble hailing a cab at the hotel, and we made it to the airport with a minimum of fuss. Despite mechanical issues and a change of aircraft, United still manages to fly us to LA only 10 minutes behind the scheduled time, which was quite a feat. Especially for all the people who had connecting flights to catch. To an extent I welcomed the delay – the normal hotel check-in time is 3pm, so the less time we have to wait for that, the better. Our shuttle bus took its time to get everyone at the airport and make its way to the hotel – another good chance for a bit of a snooze. The Magic Castle Hotel had all these great write-ups for amazing services, and from the second we walked in the door I could see why. In short, “Help yourself to free breakfast while we go get your room ready” – that is, getting the room ready four hours before the regular check-in time. Nice one. And, nice breakfast! Once the room was ready – what a room! It’s actually a one bedroom apartment. For the first time, we have a fridge! Such luxury. We eventually dragged ourselves out doors to grab some great Japanese food, and see some of the Hollywood Walk of Fame. But really, that was about it. Definitely not a high-energy day. In the evening we went out for a dinner in a old-school-styled dinner, Johnny Rockets, dodging the homeless people and all the cartoon characters who want to pose with you for a photo, and a tip of course. But that was it for the whole day – OK, 4:30am, you win!