Our Wonderful West Coast Adventure! Day 1 - San Francisco: Hills, Hobos & Laundromats

[NatsyNoo]

It won’t surprise you to read that we woke up at 4.30am. We slept well (unsurprisingly) and our bodies are saying, ‘Oi! Get up you lazy so and so, it’s lunchtime!’

We relaxed in the room for a bit, texted home, watched some tv, and eventually left the room at 8.15am. We stopped by Concierge to help us out with our airport transfer for Tuesday (booked for 4am…ouch!)

We walked to the Hollywood Café for breakfast which I had read on Trip Advisor was amazing, but the queue was huge, so we decided to give it a miss and pick something up on our way to Union Square, and we would try to get here tomorrow!

On our way down to Union Square, we spotted the famous Lombard Street to our right. This was on our plan to tackle this afternoon, but we were here already, and it didn’t look too busy, so we decided to visit now! Oh my God, I have never seen or climbed a hill like it! We had to walked 2 blocks to get there (from Columbus Street), which were uphill, and we wanted to climb the street too, so we definitely felt that we deserved our breakfast that day (not that we had any in the end!). When we got to the top, we definitely went ‘phew’!


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This is what we climbed to get up there! Ouch!


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The view from the top!


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We took our photos, and once the other side of Lombard Street, we continued down to Union Square and arrived right at City Hall where we walked through a Farmers’ Market down to Westfield.


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You may be wondering why today’s report has been named ‘Hills, Hobos and Laundromats’. Let me explain – you know the hill bit, as the whole city pretty much is like Lombard Street; the hobos and Laundromats relates to what we found on our trot down to Union Square…there were homeless people and Laundromats everywhere! I was a bit surprised to be honest, but just goes to show my naivety after solely doing Disney holidays for so long!

Back to the Farmers’ Market, it was amazing! The size of the fruit and veg was incredible and all so cheap! No wonder it was so busy!


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Westfield wasn’t due to open til 10am so we popped into Walgreens and grabbed a 7Up (99c) as we planned to grab a snack for breakfast once in Westfield (which never happened). To pass the time, we popped into Forever 21 over the road and bought me an awesome Disney top, which will be unveiled when we get to Disneyland. It cost around $25 with tax.

It was now 10am so we headed into Westfield where we did pretty well in the sales. I hit Aeropostale where 2 tshirts, 1 hoodie and 1 long-sleeved top cost me $45 or so (amazing!) and Matt picked up 3 hoodies in Hollister for $105…bargain!
Since breakfast time had long since passed and we had done all we wanted to in Westfield, at 12pm we decided to make our way over the road to Macys for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, but en route, we stopped at the Disney Store where we bought a San Francisco Cable Car Vinylmation, 2 Christmas tree decorations and a Monsters University shopping bag for $45 or so.

When we arrived at Cheesecake Factory, we were seated quickly and ordered some drinks – soft drink for Matt and strawberry lemonade for Matt! To eat, Matt ordered wings to start and fettucine alfredo with chicken for main, and I skipped the appetiser (knowing how big the portions are here!) and stuck with the chicken & sundried tomato pasta…I still couldn’t finish it though!


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Chicken wing challenge result = 9 wings!


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Defeated!

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All the food was amazing, but halfway through, I started to feel so unwell. I popped off to the toilet to see if that would make me feel better, but it didn’t, and I just started to go downhill. At one point, I threw Matt my purse, and ran away, telling him I was going to be sick and needed to get out of there. He settled up ($58 or so with $10, he forgot the receipt) and we sat outside in Union Square with a bottle of water ($1.50 from a cart) for 20 mins to see if I felt any better. I thought I felt a bit better so we went to take some pictures of the Hearts in the square (not us in them as Matt said I looked rough…nice!).


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[NatsyNoo]

We decided to head back to Fisherman’s Wharf so queued for the cable car, which took a while, as 4 passed which were full, but we eventually got on. It was incredibly jolty and cramped (not helpful!) but we’re glad we did it! It was $6 each for a single fare, and we rode to the end of the line.

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We walked back to the hotel to drop off our shopping bags, but during the walk bag, I turned bad again, so Matt was so lovely and let me just curl up into a ball and have a nap for a couple of hours before we headed to Alcatraz. It’s a shame as our plan was to have a sundae in Ghirardelli Square and climb Coit Tower before heading to Alcatraz that evening, but we obviously couldn’t do that any more.

He woke me up at 4pm knowing I’d want to freshen up before we went to Alcatraz, and we had a little bit of time before to pop into Ghirardelli Square for a nosy (no ice cream though!) where we bought 3 postcards for $1, and then we slowly meandered along the wharf towards Pier 33 for Alcatraz.

View of a foggy bridge!


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We popped into Boudin to have a look. We sadly never made it here to eat…it was our plan to after Alcatraz but I couldn’t face it and Matt wasn’t hungry anyway. Such a shame!


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Our ferry for Alcatraz departed at 5.55pm so we got there a bit before, and the ferry left bang on time. It took around 20 mins to get over to the island, and the photos ops were brilliant. I left Matt to it though as I was doing ok just sitting there with the breeze.


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Recreation Yard:


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Matt in Solitary!


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Example of a cell, and this was where one of the famous escapes happened from!


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In a cell!


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The Birdman’s Cell in the hospital wing


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Normal hospital wing cell


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Trapped!


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Super eerie at night!


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The tour itself was absolutely brilliant, and fascinating! Something which we both enjoyed equally, which was nice, and really reasonable. Pre-booking is a must, and the 2 tickets for our night tour was $74, which IMO is excellent value for a tour and experience of this quality.

I was left to do the photography, and Matt did our videoing. I won’t post too many as it’s a bit boring for a reader, but here’s a couple of highlights.

We would have loved to stay to see/hear the closing of the cell doors at 8.30pm but we were both tired and given how I’d felt earlier that day, we decided to get the 8.40pm ferry back to the Bay. I wish we could have done it, I really do, but it just felt too much at the time.

We were back at the hotel by 9.20pm, and went to bed once we’d had a shower. Not long after 10pm, we were fast asleep.

[TracyW]

Fab report, seems ages ago since we were there now, really missing it

[Guest]

Good shopping bargains! Ooh keen to know what the Disney tshirt looks like! I know what you mean about the homeless

[MichelleS]

Really enjoying reading your report

[ayles300]

Great read again.
Not nice being poorly on hols so hope you felt better quickly.

[NatsyNoo]

Originally Posted by TracyW

Fab report, seems ages ago since we were there now, really missing it

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Likewise! This was 3 weeks ago yesterday but feels like months ago now!

Originally Posted by princess_chazy

Good shopping bargains! Ooh keen to know what the Disney tshirt looks like! I know what you mean about the homeless

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Yes we were so pleased with the bargain! Felt like an expensive day though and a bit daunting when, on day 1, you spend close to $500! Thankfully outgoings dropped a bit after that!

Originally Posted by MichelleS

Really enjoying reading your report

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Thank you! I'll try to post another day during the week!

[NatsyNoo]

Originally Posted by ayles300

Great read again.
Not nice being poorly on hols so hope you felt better quickly.

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No, it sucked really bad! Not how I wanted to spend our first day! I am pleased to confirm though that I felt much better the next day but was very careful with how much and what I ate after that just in case it was food related!
Thanks for reading!

[MissVincent]

Great day, loving all your pictures

[col2501]

Fab report Nat, I've just caught up with all your posted days, such a shame you felt ill today. Alcatraz looks amazing, would love to visit one day