1. We drive out towards Sequoia National Monument only to find a state trooper blocking the road and telling us to turn back as the road up is blocked by snow (county doesn't plough above 5000 feet and so no giant sequoias for us this winter :( ). More time for San Francisco I suppose.
2. We reach San Francisco quite early in the day and easily find our hotel in the city center. This, finally, is a proper city, with streets, blocks, parks, high rises, and pedestrian areas. A city we can relate to. And a city where parking is expensive! Which we hadn't envisioned. So we use the hotel's valet service for US$35 a night. Ouch!
3. We meet the hotel's charming staff, including our bellhop Jeng, a middle-aged Chinese guy, who unsolicited carries our bags to the room and visibly expects a tip. We give him a US$1 bill, at which he snorts with contempt and leaves. We better watch our food and lock our room for the night! We find other members of the staff equally stoical, bordering on rude sometimes (an exception in this uber customer-friendly country). Clearly this city has too many tourists.
4. We marvel at the amount of Asian people in this city. The streets look more like Japan than the US.
5. As if that weren't enough we head to Chinatown. More Asians. Fun!
6. We take a walk and cross several large hills, not unlike those in the canyon country :) We arrive at a place called Telegraph Hill, a beautiful, leafy, affluent neighborhood and check out the viewpoint at Coit Tower (from the outside as it is closed for the night).
7. We retreat to the hotel, enjoy some oranges laid out in the lobby (delish!), take the vintage elevator to the hotel and find the room delightfully cramped for American (and even European standards), especially after a string of anonymous motels, where every next room seemed to be more huge than the one before. Our room in SF was basically the size of a king bed in the previous motels. But it was neat and stylish and so quite good value.