We have had absolutely stunning weather in San Francisco the past five days, 20 degrees and no clouds! We arrived on Tuesday night, pretty tired after a long days travel, the American dosmestic flights are pretty terrible. However, we went to Lori's Diner for a classic American dinner before crashing. This diner was to become a frequent stopping point for their milkshakes during our stay!

We are staying near the big shopping area, Union Square, right in the middle of town, so we spent Wednesday morning checking out the amazing sales that are currently on before walking to Chinatown for an authentic dim-sum lunch. Afterwards we headed down through North Beach, the old Italian area to Fisherman's Wharf, where we had a good look around. We headed back over the steep Russian and Nob Hill's passed Lombard St, the crookidest street in the world and checked out all the beautiful houses.

Thursday was one of the real highlights of our trip thus far! We took the cable car over to Fisherman's Wharf where we hired some bikes for the day. We set off in the beautiful weather around the coastline heading for the Golden Gate Bridge. We saw beautiful views of both the Bridge and the City on a ride over it. It is such a beautiful city! Over the bridge we headed to Sausalito, a nice beach suburb, for an excellent Thai lunch and then headed back. On the way back to the bridge we biked down to the end of a wharf with excellent views and got a big surprise when two hugging seals came flying out of the water! The ride back had more uphill and we were very tired that night!

The following day we decided to head out to check out Berkeley and had a quiet day there walking around the lovely campus, finding a renowned student pizza place for lunch that we ate in the middle of the traffic island with all the locals. We then headed back into town for a quiet afternoon looking around the shops.

Friday was a massive walking day. We headed off early for the Civic Centre then through to Alamo Square, which is surrounded by beautiful Victorian houses and a great view over the city made famous by the TV show Full House. The streets around were all full of nice houses, cafes and boutiques. Ashbury Haight was the next stop, the area that was epicentre of the Hippy movement and still retains that essence. Bordering here was the Castro, centre of the Gay Rights Movement and the Mission, a Hispanic area, were we had authentic burritos at La Taqueria, yum! The afternoon was spent lounging around massive Golden Gate Park. We watched a whole crowd of Hippies playing drums and took in the lovely Japanese Tea Gardens, before walking back home through Japantown having covered a huge amount of miles and very tired!

Today, after French toast and waffles for breakfast it was off on the street car back around to Fisherman's Wharf where we headed to Fort Mason Farmer's Market for a look around before heading to the Exploratorium, a museum full of touch and sensory science exhibitions that are quite mind boggling! The tactile dome was really cool, kept pitch black we had to squeeze our way through a path way that is littered with all sorts of weird objects and tight passageways. After a late lunch in Chinatown it was time for our last milkshake at Lori's Diner before heading back to our hostel to prepare for our California roadtrip starting tomorrow.