Story #265: San Francisco: Day 1, First Impression

San Francisco is a GREAT place to see. Mr. L and I love the city a lot. I especially love the weather. It's the kind of weather that is perfect for people like me who is a staunch believer in staying fair-skinned and young. Weather seriously has such huge impact on a person's skin. Even though the desert is more salubrious for people who have allergies, it's definitely not the great place healthy skin (too DRY! My skin is constantly screaming "I am dehydrated!!!!!!!!!!! Feed me moisture!"). San Francisco is pretty humid and it's not as hot as Malaysia and the sun is always hiding behind the clouds, just the way I like it. However, San Francisco is COLD. "San Franciscold!" When the wind blows, you'll be wishing you are wearing 3 layers of jackets and a hat of some sort. I was so thankful to have hair! Can't imagine bald people living in cold places. How can their poor head stand the cold?

So when we flew into SF International airport, we were pretty tired. We had to get up at 4am and take the St.George shuttle down to Las Vegas to catch the plane. Luckily, the flight was short. Oh, speaking of the flight... it was one of the most interesting flight I have been on. The air-steward said something funny on the plane that made everybody laughed. I think he said something about not doing naughty things in the lavatory. Also, we were sitting across from this English/Australian dude and caught him digging deep in his nose. What's so GREAT was after he did that he totally put that same finger in his mouth!!!!!!!!!! Mr.L and I tried so hard to not burst out laughing. I seriously would roll on the floor if there was room. I've heard of people that do that but I've never really seen one...in public! So you see, our trip started out good already.

After getting our rental car, we went back to our hotel, which was an inn a little bit outside of San Francisco, somewhere close to Daly City. It was pretty sweet. It sat on a little steep hill and we had to park our car on parking lot at an angle. It was pretty scary. The inn was not in a tall building, it was like a few small houses attached side by side on the hill. A sweet and cozy little place for our week-long stay.

Our motel. I still can't get over how cute it was.

Our first stop was Pier 39/Fisherman's Wharf. It was not as fun as I had imagined it to be, it was interesting to see so many sea lions laying out on the dock in the sun. It was a Saturday when we went there so there were a lot of people. The sea gulls and pelicans scared me though. They are not afraid of humans and fly around so freely. I was worried that they would drop their "bomb" on me. They were squawking constantly. If you get close to one and it squawks in your ear, it's not a great experience.

That pile of brown thing on the deck was actually the sea lions.

I was eager to try out the telephoto and wide angle lenses that I have rented from a place in San Mateo so I took a ton of pictures. Telephoto lens are so great. I was standing really far away from the sea-lions but was able to see them really clearly through the lens. It was like a pair of binoculars. My cousin told me that the clam chowder at Fisherman's wharf was really famous and good so I was really excited to try it out. But I didn't know there were so many stalls and restaurants there that sold clam chowder. I didn't know which one was better so we just went to this little stall close to the carousel to try it out. Hmm...food is expensive in SF. I guess it is especially so in touristy places. For a bowl of clam chowder, some fries, and a hot dog, we paid 19 bucks. tsk tsk~~

Clam chowder and sour dough bread.

Outdoor restaurant at Pier 39

Alcatraz penitentary

Mr.L and his new friend.

Real life Repunzel.

We didn't spend too much time at the pier because the parking fee was so expensive ($7 per hour). We went back to the parking garage a minute before it hit the one hour mark. phew~ talk about luck! We then went up to Nob Hill to see Grace Cathedral. I've seen some really cool pictures taken there and was really eager to try to take some HDR photos there. Also, there were 2 labyrinths in at the Cathedral, one on the inside and one on the outside.

We also wanted to see the "most crooked street in America." So we head up to Lombard street. Man...it was so scary driving up those steep, steep hills. It was so funny to see all the cars parked on the side of the road at an angle because of how steep the hill was. Imaging tipping one car over! When we reached the street, there were like 100 cars already waiting to drive down the road. However, they were stuck at the 4 way stop. We circled around the block and come back from the other street so we could avoid the traffic. When I saw how crooked the street was, I seriously doubt that Mr.L could drive down it without somehow damaging our rental car. It was really cool though. I liked how there were houses on both sides of the street. Imaging driving down that crooked street everyday! Mr. L ended up driving down the street twice cause I wanted to take some pictures of the street and of him driving down again.

Look at him! So cocky, eh?

Coit tower was a neat place to go to. I didn't plan to go here in the first place when I was planning for our trip. But when I saw the building at the parking garage at Fisherman's wharf, I was like, "I WANT TO SEE IT!!" So we went on it. Paid 10 bucks to go up to the top on an old-school elevator that has a gate and an elevator man in it. You can practically see all of San Francisco (since the city itself was only about 6 miles square), including the Golden Gate Bridge. I don't remember the history of the building, I only know it was pretty old.

Alcatraz prison from Coit Tower

Inside the elevator

Do you see the crooked Lombard Street?

It was almost sunset when we decided to go find Fort Point, a great place to photograph Golden Gate Bridge. We got lost because google map can't be trusted sometimes but Mr.L took a correct turn and we found the place by accident. It was indeed a great place to see the majestic GGB. There were a lot of people jogging there, in shorts and sleeveless tops. I was freezing my little hiny off wearing 2 jackets. How did they do that?! Also, one thing I noticed in SF was SO many people had pet dogs that they took with them on the streets. I got a lot of good night pictures of the GGB. When the sun sets and the street lights came on, the bridge looked so lively, like there was a party going on there.

San Francisco city at night

Our first night in SF ended with us going to a 50's diner called "Lori's Diner" at Ghiradelli's Square. Ghiradelli's Square has a lot of cute shops there. There was this store that sells a lot of cute stuff that were very Alice-in-Wonderland-ish. The food at Lori's was good. As usual, Mr. L got burgers (I guess I deprived him of his American food by feeding him rice and chinese cooking), and I ordered a plate of delicious pasta, which comes with a sour-dough roll (I don't really like the bread...tasted like something that went bad). The restaurant was decorated with some vintage decor and the price was decent.

First night on our honeymoon, we were wasted from the travel and sight-seeing, but we had a ton of fun just in the few hours we were there.

Stay tuned for Day 2!