Today we went on a cable car. I have always wanted to ride on the standing board but have never been able to. Today, that was the only place available so we travelled all the way from Union Square to the bottom of Hyde St (near Fisherman's Wharf). That route takes in some pretty steep hills & we got some good views. It was a clear sunny day and the Golden Gate Bridge was completely visible.
My camera is still playing up. It is telling me the memory is full & there are 125 photos. But, there are over 850 photos on there. I didn't want to have no photos of the rest of the trip so I decided to buy a cheap camera I could put my existing card into. We went into a camera shop near the cable car stop & I told the man I didn't want to spend more than $100. I looked at some cheap ones & then he asked if I would be interested in a demo model. That way I could get a better quality camera for not much more than I wanted to spend. He showed me a tiny Nikon they had on sale which doesn't need a separate memory card or batteries. It came in silver or hot pink which was just perfect. It seems to be a good camera.
We caught the cable car back up to Nob Hill & went to the Cable Car Museum. There are some historical things there but main thing to see is the massive wheels & cables pulling the cable cars along the streets. There are 4 different cable car lines in San Francisco which are all controlled from this centre. The cables constantly move & you can hear them in the street. When we first arrived in SF we thought it was electricity we could hear. The cables are extremely thick but only last 75 - 250 days. When a strand snaps an alarm sounds in the cable car centre & the workers have to manually override it so the cable car can continue. Once all the cable cars return to the centre by 1am, the workers run the cables until the broken section is in the workshop. Then they remove that piece & splice a new piece of cable in. The new piece has to be exactly the same width as the existing cable otherwise it will not work. The process takes 5hrs & has to be completed by 6am so the cable cars can begin their daily runs. It was very interesting to see it all in action.
While we were in Nob Hill we walked up the hill to The Fairmont Hotel. In the foyer of the hotel is a 2 storey gingerbread house. It is made of over 7500 gingerbread bricks, tons of icing & lollies. It looks fantastic & smells like gingerbread. We could see areas where people had taken a bite. There was also a doghouse on the other side of the foyer. This was made of gingerbread bones.
One block from The Fairmont is the Grace Cathedral. This is one of the largest French-Gothic cathedrals in the US. It is impressive on the outside but inside there is over 7000 square feet of stained glass. The windows are beautiful. There was an art installation in the church which consisted of hundred & hundreds of coloured ribbons hanging from the very tall ceiling. The colours represented different things & the congregation had been asked to write their prayer on the ribbons before they were hung. It looks very effective.
Next we walked down the very steep hill to Chinatown. It covers quite a few blocks & was full of shops selling Chinese trinkets & souvenirs and restaurants. I bought a bag I am hoping the chicken box will fit in along with some other things to take full advantage of the additional baggage allowance I am going to pay for. When we were on one of the bus tours the guide recommended a couple of good restaurants in Chinatown so we found one for a late lunch. It was called the R & G Lounge - not a typical name for a Chinese restaurant but the food was very nice.
We continued walking back into town & looked around the Market St area before heading back to the hotel.
In the morning we head to Monterey.