California 2018 : San Francisco Part 1

San Francisco was a fascinating place. We stayed in a three storey house in South San Francisco. It was an Airbnb, and the arrangement was a little strange. We had to enter and leave through the garage as the owner was a little worried about people spotting lots of people coming and going. Surely there is nothing more conspicuous than 9 people and their luggage entering through a garage.

The place was nice and clean, although again was very short on cutlery.

Our first main excursion into San Francisco involved a walking tour of Chinatown. It was fascinating. The weather was not ridiculously hot, so it was nice to walk around with a couple of tour guides telling us the history of the place whilst we were actually there.

We also queued up for a long time (about two hours) to get on one of the Trolley Car things. It was a great experience, though, to ride on one, but they could definitely do a better job of their queuing system and possibly even explain what was going on to people.

We ate in a great Chinese restaurant. The food was delicious. Maggie helped to order. The Russia vs Croatia World Cup Quarter Final was on in the restaurant. We caught the end of the game including the penalty shootout, which was exciting. 

It was surprising not only how many homeless people there were in central San Francisco, but also how old they were. Most were middle aged or older. Michael and Emma really enjoyed some of the buskers around the wait for the Trolley Car, especially the guy drumming using plastic bins and claiming the police confiscated his kit so he was trying to raise $6000 to buy another one.

Michael and Emma enjoyed being driven around some of the streets of San Francisco by Shannon. They were crazy. Michael tried in vain to catch a picture of Lombard Street to show how steep and bendy it is, but it's almost impossible to catch on film. I genuinely felt panic when we got to the bottom of some of the steeper streets. They were unbelievable!