25 February 2005
San Fran - part two
Yes, we thought we would break it up a little so you could take a break if needed.
So, wednesday we thought we would take it a little easier, Chris wasn't feeling too hot (thinks he is getting a cold) and I was tired too, from another night on that crappy matress. So (after quite a late start) - we decided that going for a walk around our local area would be a good idea.
On the way out of the Hostel Elke went and spoke to the guy on the front desk to explain our general dislike of the mattress we were given and explain how poorly we had slept the last couple of nights. The guy, with cool dredys, said no worries, they would change the mattress over for us while we were out today. Excellent.
We stopped in by the Yerba Buena Gardens, a lovely inner city spot that is proabably even nicer in summer and then headed around the corner to find the Ansel Adams Centre. It is meant to be a centre dedicated to photography as an art form and to Ansel Adams in particular. We couldn't find it. It just wasn't where our six year old Lonely Planet Guide said that it was meant to be... bugger.
So we figured that the Museum for Contemporary Arts would be a good substitute, a bit of pop art and that stuff. But they are closed on Wednesdays...bugger.
So then, after a coffee in Starbucks to get over so much disappiontment and double-check our guide, we headed a few blocks to the south to find the Asian Art Museum. This proved to be an excellent choice - A) we could find it - there was a very large red dinosaur outside, B) they were open and C) the displayed work was an excellent range of stuff and just so damn old. They also had an interesting display on about forensic testing of artefacts to determine if they really are old or not.
Pretty cool stuff.
Ever since we arrived in the US Chris has been talking about Quizzno's, it is a subway type takeaway store that he discovered when he was living in Chicago a couple of years ago. So tonight was the night to hunt down this illusive store and see if all the stories are true. It was ok. Actually it was pretty good and certainly filled a hole. Then it was back to the hostel to meet some more of our fellow 'packers' and hear a little about their stories.
Our mattress hadn't been changed as promised, so we organised to change rooms with the (different) guy on the front desk. This room has a mattress that, under the protector, feels as though it is covered in vinyl. It squeeks slightly every time either of us rolls over. Or breathes. Ahhh ... youth hostels!!
Thursday started out looking gloomy and overcast. Just as they had predicted. And actually that is how it stayed all day. We caught a bus towards Golden Gate Park. It is huge!! It took a while to work out why our map seemed to show a relatively square shaped park when all other maps we had seen showed that the park is infact about three times as long as it is wide, (the makers of our map had seen fit to squash the western side of the peninsular so that it fit better on the page).(In their defence there was a small box on the map explaining this - but we've never seen it before) It is a lovely big park and contains within it the San Francisco Botanical Gardens. We went for a wander between all kinds of very familiar trees and shrubs, we were in the Australian section of the garden and it was so nice to see paperbarks, gums and kangaroo paw!! It was a bit spinny then to see squirrels running up and down a New Zealand Pohutakawa (sp?) tree. Kind of neat too. They were very hungry and not shy in the least running right up to us and climbing all over the bench we were sitting on. Squirrels really like cashew nuts.
This evening we have spent a great deal of time in the internet lab, updating this blog (twice, because Elke didn't save it the first time and closed the application - good work Ms Media Teacher!! :))and trying to get the new photos onto the site.
Now we are heading back to our room with the sqeeky vinyl mattress to re-pack our bags and get ready for the next leg of our journey - north to visit Elke's Oma, Uncle and family. It should be a bit colder up there (we have been easing into it slowly) and hopefully the week after we will see snow.... fingers crossed.
Chris is concerned - Let us know if these are too long for you to be bothered reading. We can try to cut them down. Also there is a link you can click on at the bottom that lets you comment on each post. We would love to hear back from you... hugs.
So, wednesday we thought we would take it a little easier, Chris wasn't feeling too hot (thinks he is getting a cold) and I was tired too, from another night on that crappy matress. So (after quite a late start) - we decided that going for a walk around our local area would be a good idea.
On the way out of the Hostel Elke went and spoke to the guy on the front desk to explain our general dislike of the mattress we were given and explain how poorly we had slept the last couple of nights. The guy, with cool dredys, said no worries, they would change the mattress over for us while we were out today. Excellent.
We stopped in by the Yerba Buena Gardens, a lovely inner city spot that is proabably even nicer in summer and then headed around the corner to find the Ansel Adams Centre. It is meant to be a centre dedicated to photography as an art form and to Ansel Adams in particular. We couldn't find it. It just wasn't where our six year old Lonely Planet Guide said that it was meant to be... bugger.
So we figured that the Museum for Contemporary Arts would be a good substitute, a bit of pop art and that stuff. But they are closed on Wednesdays...bugger.
So then, after a coffee in Starbucks to get over so much disappiontment and double-check our guide, we headed a few blocks to the south to find the Asian Art Museum. This proved to be an excellent choice - A) we could find it - there was a very large red dinosaur outside, B) they were open and C) the displayed work was an excellent range of stuff and just so damn old. They also had an interesting display on about forensic testing of artefacts to determine if they really are old or not.
Pretty cool stuff.
Ever since we arrived in the US Chris has been talking about Quizzno's, it is a subway type takeaway store that he discovered when he was living in Chicago a couple of years ago. So tonight was the night to hunt down this illusive store and see if all the stories are true. It was ok. Actually it was pretty good and certainly filled a hole. Then it was back to the hostel to meet some more of our fellow 'packers' and hear a little about their stories.
Our mattress hadn't been changed as promised, so we organised to change rooms with the (different) guy on the front desk. This room has a mattress that, under the protector, feels as though it is covered in vinyl. It squeeks slightly every time either of us rolls over. Or breathes. Ahhh ... youth hostels!!
Thursday started out looking gloomy and overcast. Just as they had predicted. And actually that is how it stayed all day. We caught a bus towards Golden Gate Park. It is huge!! It took a while to work out why our map seemed to show a relatively square shaped park when all other maps we had seen showed that the park is infact about three times as long as it is wide, (the makers of our map had seen fit to squash the western side of the peninsular so that it fit better on the page).(In their defence there was a small box on the map explaining this - but we've never seen it before) It is a lovely big park and contains within it the San Francisco Botanical Gardens. We went for a wander between all kinds of very familiar trees and shrubs, we were in the Australian section of the garden and it was so nice to see paperbarks, gums and kangaroo paw!! It was a bit spinny then to see squirrels running up and down a New Zealand Pohutakawa (sp?) tree. Kind of neat too. They were very hungry and not shy in the least running right up to us and climbing all over the bench we were sitting on. Squirrels really like cashew nuts.
This evening we have spent a great deal of time in the internet lab, updating this blog (twice, because Elke didn't save it the first time and closed the application - good work Ms Media Teacher!! :))and trying to get the new photos onto the site.
Now we are heading back to our room with the sqeeky vinyl mattress to re-pack our bags and get ready for the next leg of our journey - north to visit Elke's Oma, Uncle and family. It should be a bit colder up there (we have been easing into it slowly) and hopefully the week after we will see snow.... fingers crossed.
Chris is concerned - Let us know if these are too long for you to be bothered reading. We can try to cut them down. Also there is a link you can click on at the bottom that lets you comment on each post. We would love to hear back from you... hugs.
San Francisco - the beginnning
This city if beautiful.
We left Waikiki on the same shuttle bus that dropped us off on our first night. It was abit sad to be leaving but we were off on another adventure so that kind of made up for it. Our driver was a character, he kept laughing at the other drivers and because there are so many one way streets in Waikiki we were literally driving in circles to get to all the hotels he had to stop at and to get out of the city. he had a really infections giggle, so Chris and i were smiling most of the way to Honolulu International Airport. this airport is nothing to write home about, so I won't.
The flight over was fine, full but fine, and the view of the sunrise on monday morning was pretty spectacular. We arrived at about seven that morning and although we couldn't check into our hostel that early we were able to locker our luggage and head out for a few hours.
Here in San Fran (which is what it shall be referred to from now on) has regular buses, electric buses and cable cars (which look a little like trams in Melbourne). The cable car, while a little slower is by far the most fun one to ride. They are literally moved along the street by grabbing hold of a cable that runs underneath the city streets. We have our doubts about how well the driver can control the speed of the beast, this being the case, but they seems to bdo well and we had no accidents. Chris and I had the best seat on the cable car, this means that we were actually standing up and hanging onto the outside. Very cool, just watch out for parked trucks and pedestrians and street signs and and and... Still, yay!
More photos here .
It must have been our day for funny drivers because the one we had ont the cable car was also a hoot, partly though I think it was his dry delivery and cool american accent that made it all the funnier.
The streets of San Fran are laid out in a neat grid, all running either north-south or east-west, and you could be forgiven for thinking, looking at the map, that the city was built on a nice flat piece of land. It isn't. The hills here are amazing! The are so steep that even the fittest of you would be panting and wheezing by the top! It is awe inspiring to watch the cable cars climb these hills and believe me, you want to hold on tight when they start heading either up or down!
The view down some of these streets across the city or across the bay are very pretty and as you get closer to Fisherman's Wharf you gat an excellent view of Alcatraz.
We went for a wander when we arrived at Fisherman's Wharf (nothing like the one in Darwin) and found a guy selling tickets for a cruiose around the bay, so after we had booked our tickets for Alcatraz for the Tuesday we went back and boarded his boat, 'The Wacky Jacky'... We liked the name. The sun was shining but the wind was freezing, even underneath the complimentary borrowed blankets.
The Wacky Jacky sailed out under the Golden Gate Bridge (so named because it was built over the gateway to the gold rush area, not because of its colour). The rush of water under the bridge is huge, which if you look at a map is not surprising. The bay is huge and so must the amount of water be that tries to get through there each time the tide changes. From there we sailed around the island of Alcatraz, it is actually quite pretty, our amusing captain (yes another one!!) gave us a running commentary on which movies were filmed where and who lives where and so on. It was well worth the $10.
From there we wandered around some small local markets and inspected the photography and jewellery. Some nice pieces but nothing that demanded we buy it.
That evening we found our way to a club called 'Bisuits and Blues', surprise surprise, it was a blues club. Playing that evening was Natasha James and Band. They were quite good so we stayed and ordered some biscuits to go with our blues. For the un-enlightened (which included us until a couple of days ago) a biscuit is a warm, baked, breadlike thing which at home we commonly call a scone. It was a really cool evening and we tried a couple of samples of a local beer called, Sierra Nevada... yum.
The next day we got up feeling really blah. Not beacuse of the Sierra Nevada... The mattress we slept on was mostly collapsed on one side and so we kept rolling into the middle or risked rolling off altogether. We made it down to Pier 41 for the Alcatraz tour in time and had our photo taken by the staff as we were boarding the boat (we later found out that we could buy that very daggy photo for a mere $15, or six copies for $20 - no thanks).
The tickets included an audio tour of the prison once we made on to the island. This was excellent. We heard from several previous inmates and prison wardens about their experiences. It was really well put together and very informative. The buildings there started out as a military fort to protect the bay, it was then turned into a military prison when it became clear that a fort was nolonger needed. The it was turned into a prison for the nation's nastiest criminals. There were some very intersting stories included on the audio tour and we were both really pleased that we got to go.
We went for a wander on Pier 39, some interesting shops, but all very touristy and we were still not feeling well so we found a drug store (pharmacy) and bought some drugs (paracetemol and cold and flu tabs) and headed for home. We decided to hang out in the hostel common room and watch TV for a couple of hours. You meet some interesting charcters in hostels...
We left Waikiki on the same shuttle bus that dropped us off on our first night. It was abit sad to be leaving but we were off on another adventure so that kind of made up for it. Our driver was a character, he kept laughing at the other drivers and because there are so many one way streets in Waikiki we were literally driving in circles to get to all the hotels he had to stop at and to get out of the city. he had a really infections giggle, so Chris and i were smiling most of the way to Honolulu International Airport. this airport is nothing to write home about, so I won't.
The flight over was fine, full but fine, and the view of the sunrise on monday morning was pretty spectacular. We arrived at about seven that morning and although we couldn't check into our hostel that early we were able to locker our luggage and head out for a few hours.
Here in San Fran (which is what it shall be referred to from now on) has regular buses, electric buses and cable cars (which look a little like trams in Melbourne). The cable car, while a little slower is by far the most fun one to ride. They are literally moved along the street by grabbing hold of a cable that runs underneath the city streets. We have our doubts about how well the driver can control the speed of the beast, this being the case, but they seems to bdo well and we had no accidents. Chris and I had the best seat on the cable car, this means that we were actually standing up and hanging onto the outside. Very cool, just watch out for parked trucks and pedestrians and street signs and and and... Still, yay!
More photos here .
It must have been our day for funny drivers because the one we had ont the cable car was also a hoot, partly though I think it was his dry delivery and cool american accent that made it all the funnier.
The streets of San Fran are laid out in a neat grid, all running either north-south or east-west, and you could be forgiven for thinking, looking at the map, that the city was built on a nice flat piece of land. It isn't. The hills here are amazing! The are so steep that even the fittest of you would be panting and wheezing by the top! It is awe inspiring to watch the cable cars climb these hills and believe me, you want to hold on tight when they start heading either up or down!
The view down some of these streets across the city or across the bay are very pretty and as you get closer to Fisherman's Wharf you gat an excellent view of Alcatraz.
We went for a wander when we arrived at Fisherman's Wharf (nothing like the one in Darwin) and found a guy selling tickets for a cruiose around the bay, so after we had booked our tickets for Alcatraz for the Tuesday we went back and boarded his boat, 'The Wacky Jacky'... We liked the name. The sun was shining but the wind was freezing, even underneath the complimentary borrowed blankets.
The Wacky Jacky sailed out under the Golden Gate Bridge (so named because it was built over the gateway to the gold rush area, not because of its colour). The rush of water under the bridge is huge, which if you look at a map is not surprising. The bay is huge and so must the amount of water be that tries to get through there each time the tide changes. From there we sailed around the island of Alcatraz, it is actually quite pretty, our amusing captain (yes another one!!) gave us a running commentary on which movies were filmed where and who lives where and so on. It was well worth the $10.
From there we wandered around some small local markets and inspected the photography and jewellery. Some nice pieces but nothing that demanded we buy it.
That evening we found our way to a club called 'Bisuits and Blues', surprise surprise, it was a blues club. Playing that evening was Natasha James and Band. They were quite good so we stayed and ordered some biscuits to go with our blues. For the un-enlightened (which included us until a couple of days ago) a biscuit is a warm, baked, breadlike thing which at home we commonly call a scone. It was a really cool evening and we tried a couple of samples of a local beer called, Sierra Nevada... yum.
The next day we got up feeling really blah. Not beacuse of the Sierra Nevada... The mattress we slept on was mostly collapsed on one side and so we kept rolling into the middle or risked rolling off altogether. We made it down to Pier 41 for the Alcatraz tour in time and had our photo taken by the staff as we were boarding the boat (we later found out that we could buy that very daggy photo for a mere $15, or six copies for $20 - no thanks).
The tickets included an audio tour of the prison once we made on to the island. This was excellent. We heard from several previous inmates and prison wardens about their experiences. It was really well put together and very informative. The buildings there started out as a military fort to protect the bay, it was then turned into a military prison when it became clear that a fort was nolonger needed. The it was turned into a prison for the nation's nastiest criminals. There were some very intersting stories included on the audio tour and we were both really pleased that we got to go.
We went for a wander on Pier 39, some interesting shops, but all very touristy and we were still not feeling well so we found a drug store (pharmacy) and bought some drugs (paracetemol and cold and flu tabs) and headed for home. We decided to hang out in the hostel common room and watch TV for a couple of hours. You meet some interesting charcters in hostels...
21 February 2005
Our first post !
Yay, our holiday is off to a brilliant start! We have just had a fabulous week in Waikiki on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. But let me go back a bit and fill you in...
We left Perth on Valentines Day at 6:45 in the evening on a six hour flight and arrived twelve hours later in Auckland, New Zealand. Needless to say we were both pretty tired because for us it was about one in the morning and neither of us got much sleep on the plane (uncomfortable seats and movies on the screen all night).
We met up with Eloise Healey and Cherly Hayes (good friends from Darwin High School) for breakfast in Auckland. It was very cool to be sitting with two good friends in a foreign city (yes, NZ counts as foreign) eating and catching up. We hadn't seen either of them since our wedding in July so it was nice to just sit and chat.
Our flight to Hawaii that afternoon was better - we were able to get seats with a bit more leg room and both of us slept quite well. We arrived late on Monday night (the night before we left) and had to take a dodgy yet expensive room in a hotel. Our choices were severly diminished by the fact that the whole town is full because of a Pro Bowl football game that was on the day before we arrived. Nevertheless we slept well.
Tuesday morning we donned our packs and walked to the other end of Waikiki to a hostel which turned out to be a god-send. The Polynesial Hostel is great.
Now, before we bore you too much and you stop reading, here comes a brief outline of the things we have done in the last six days...
We have swum in beautful clear water, sun-bathed on wonderful warm sands, we climbed up to Diamond Head (an extinct volcano crater) for sunrise, we went on a sunset sail in the bay off Waikiki, we took a tour with the hostel up to the North Shore where we were able to see (and feed) sea turtles up close (very, very cool) go to a big surfing beach and swim at Waimea. We went to Pearl harbour and saw the USS Arizona memorial. We have been into about 1000 ABC stores (convenience stores more prolific than braidsin Bali or sand in the Sahara). We have spent some time working on our tans because we know that it will be some time before we see the sun again.... All in all it has been a wonderful relaxing week, which is how we had hoped to spend our honeymoon!
We plan to come back here when we have some more time to get to the other islands... It is really beautiful... Chris is going to try and attach a link to some photos (fingers crossed) so you can see!!
Tonight (Sunday 20th Feb) we fly to San Francisco for four nights and hopefully a trip to Alcatraz. We will update again soon, so be sure to check when you get a chance! Be safe! We are having a ball!!
Photos here...I hope
We left Perth on Valentines Day at 6:45 in the evening on a six hour flight and arrived twelve hours later in Auckland, New Zealand. Needless to say we were both pretty tired because for us it was about one in the morning and neither of us got much sleep on the plane (uncomfortable seats and movies on the screen all night).
We met up with Eloise Healey and Cherly Hayes (good friends from Darwin High School) for breakfast in Auckland. It was very cool to be sitting with two good friends in a foreign city (yes, NZ counts as foreign) eating and catching up. We hadn't seen either of them since our wedding in July so it was nice to just sit and chat.
Our flight to Hawaii that afternoon was better - we were able to get seats with a bit more leg room and both of us slept quite well. We arrived late on Monday night (the night before we left) and had to take a dodgy yet expensive room in a hotel. Our choices were severly diminished by the fact that the whole town is full because of a Pro Bowl football game that was on the day before we arrived. Nevertheless we slept well.
Tuesday morning we donned our packs and walked to the other end of Waikiki to a hostel which turned out to be a god-send. The Polynesial Hostel is great.
Now, before we bore you too much and you stop reading, here comes a brief outline of the things we have done in the last six days...
We have swum in beautful clear water, sun-bathed on wonderful warm sands, we climbed up to Diamond Head (an extinct volcano crater) for sunrise, we went on a sunset sail in the bay off Waikiki, we took a tour with the hostel up to the North Shore where we were able to see (and feed) sea turtles up close (very, very cool) go to a big surfing beach and swim at Waimea. We went to Pearl harbour and saw the USS Arizona memorial. We have been into about 1000 ABC stores (convenience stores more prolific than braidsin Bali or sand in the Sahara). We have spent some time working on our tans because we know that it will be some time before we see the sun again.... All in all it has been a wonderful relaxing week, which is how we had hoped to spend our honeymoon!
We plan to come back here when we have some more time to get to the other islands... It is really beautiful... Chris is going to try and attach a link to some photos (fingers crossed) so you can see!!
Tonight (Sunday 20th Feb) we fly to San Francisco for four nights and hopefully a trip to Alcatraz. We will update again soon, so be sure to check when you get a chance! Be safe! We are having a ball!!
Photos here...I hope
