San Francisco

Sept 19th - Sept 27th (Day 199 - Day 207)

From Beijing we took a 12 hour flight directly to San Francisco. We were excited about reaching the USA but also quite nervous as it was our first time out of Asia for six months and we had really enjoyed our time there. We were not too sure how we would find being back in the Western world.

The first shock was not being back in the Western world but actually landing before we took off. The flight took 12 hours and San Francisco is 15 hours behind China, so technically we went back in time….well kind of anyway. Another result of this that we ended up having a 39 hour day….which was pretty tiring to say the least.

Our first full day in San Francisco happened to be my birthday…exciting. So I celebrated as I believe every birthday should be, a vindaloo for lunch and then a trip to the cinema to watch the Aryton Senna movie. This was followed up by an early night as we had to be up early to be picked up for our Yosemite tour.

We were picked up bright and early by our tour guide Tom and after picking up a few more people we were on our way to Yosemite national park. The drive took about four hours and took us through varying landscapes before climbing up towards the park. Once we entered the Yosemite valley the scenery became absolutely stunning, with high mountains either side and a lush green landscape with a river flowing through it on the valley floor.

The first stop on our tour of the valley was a short trek to see some giant sequoia trees, the trees were huge and very impressive. But more impressive was some tree facts our tour guide Tom was giving us, particularly when he told us fire was good for trees! Surely not I thought using the traditional equation of (wood + fire = bad). But no…...apparently regular forest fires clear the forest canopy and help the sequoias grow, plus the sequoias have natural fire proofing built into their bark…I was amazed and tour guide Tom became my hero. This became my favourite fact for the next few weeks or so and I brought it in to play whenever I could, much to Tina´s annoyance and boredom .

The rest of the afternoon was spent driving around the park visiting some of the best view points. Some of these view points were truly amazing, at times it seemed you were looking at a vivid painting and you had to remind yourself it was actually there in front of you….. it was just stunning.

That evening we stayed at a lodge just outside the park and got some sleep to prepare for a good hike the following day. The following day we had a good solid American breakfast of burnt bacon and then set off back to the park. Our aim for the morning was to hike up the side of the valley to the bottom of Yosemite falls, the biggest waterfall in the park. We thought it would be a relatively simple hike but as the day began to heat up and the impact of the altitude kicked in it began to turn into an epic. But in the end it was well worth it with fantastic views of the valley as were we climbing and then great views of Yosemite falls once we reached our destination. We eventually got back down to the valley floor around midday, just in time to grab some food and jump on the bus back to San Francisco.

We were very excited to get back to San Francisco because Tina´s friends Alex and Rachel were coming out to spend some time with us and we were meeting them the following day.

On our first day all together we hit the open top buses hard, we bought all day passes that gave us access to all the routes in the city. This made Rachel particularly happy as she is a self confessed open top bus tour enthusiast. We took in all the sights of the city including the golden gate bridge whilst hearing interesting, if a little repetitive commentary about the city.

The following day we took a taxi to fisherman´s wharf in order to get ferry over to Alcatraz Island for the prison tour. The tour was very interesting, very slick and well presented, giving an interesting insight into the history of Alcatraz Island. After the tour we headed back on the ferry and to a walk along the past all the piers and found an Irish pub where we partook in a few early afternoon beers and a pulled pork sandwich.

The following day Rachel and Alex went on a Napa valley wine tour while Tina and I chilled out. When we met up with the girls that evening it became clear Alex was hobbling around badly. We asked what had happened and she told us she thought she had sprained her ankle because she was staring at goats and fell over. I think this is a warning to everyone about the dangerous combination of red wine and goat staring being best avoided for fear of serious injury.

On our final day we woke up to find out Alex had had to go to hospital because her ankle had become badly swollen. When we eventually met up with them later that day, Alex had a brand new set of crutches with her and a very swollen sprained ankle. We were concerned that Alex might have issues getting around particularly as we had tickets to watch the baseball that night. As it turns out crutches are not a hindrance…more like a golden ticket! First in the queue here, special treatment there and no queuing for the baseball, we went straight up in the VIP lift. Also when it comes to starting new conversations and making new friends..crutches are priceless. Alex´s crutches quickly became a highly valued member of our team.

The baseball game itself was great, the atmosphere was superb and the San Francisco giants beat the Colorado Rockies, so everyone was happy. I really enjoyed learning the intricacies of the game and Tina and Rachel were big fans of the entertainment provided between each inning, such as dance cam and fist cam. This is where the cameras would pick people out in the crowd and they would start dancing, usually overly enthusiastic middle aged guys who were hugely overweight….classic entertainment.

The following day we had an early flight to the bright lights of the Las Vegas strip.

xxx