A hot day of 36 degrees as we left for colder climates. A 3pm flight out of Melbourne on Qantas direct to Lax & the 13.5hrs went reasonably quickly. At first the basket style foot rests seemed we would be in for a comfortable ride but inevitably the seat became uncomfortable and I only had about 3hrs sleep. The food was quite good for airline food with the extra chocolate & ice team snacks a welcome distraction. We got through immigration surprisingly quickly as we could use the electronic readers because we had visited the US before. A few hours wait & it was our final short flights to San Fransisco. We met another Aussie from Geelong who was quite a conversationalist & he ended up catching the BART into central San Fran with us where we got off at Embarcadero & walked a few blocks to Club Quarter, our hotel that I had correctly picked as a mystery hotel special. Before it got completely dark we went out for a walk to find it was spitting quite a lot. Settling on a Chinese restaurant for dinner we had a very simple but tasty beef with broccoli with fried rice. It was raining steadily now as we went to find the cable car to perhaps got to Fishermans wharf but once located we instead head towards union square. $7usd for the ride we screeched & rattled downhill to the end of the line then walked back to the hotel in & out of a few shops and trying to stay dry. It was a relief to finally crawl into bed & I barely moved until morning.