New Years Day in San Francisco

New Years Day in San Francisco was a pretty quiet affair.

We slept in for an hour or so to recover from the big trip the day before. The first thing on the agenda was to ride a Cable Car. These are the only National Monuments of the US that move, others are things like Statue of Liberty and a collection of National Parks. It's best to start early to ride one of these otherwise the queue is massive.

The closest Cable Car to the Hotel was the Powell and Hyde Street line. Two of us sat on the outside and 2 of us stood on the running board. When another car is going past they call out for those standing on that side to look out. The Brakeman in the middle works quite hard and has to have a delicate touch to make the trip as smooth as possible othrwise it would be uncomfortable as the hills are quite huge. The brakes are lumps of wood they rub along the tracks so there is always the smell of burning wood and they are certainly applied early. The locals seem to accept the Cable Cars stopping in the middle of intersections as the brakes are a little soft or the tourists have a good photo opportunity. There would be a bit of weight on them as they are usually crammed full of tourists.

The Cable Car took us all the way to Fisherman's Wharf where we strolled along with the crowds. There is a large group of Sea Lions that live in one of the docks, they have their own area and can get up to a few hundred in number. They have their own docks with pontoons and are pretty much left alone.

You might have noticed something different?

Look at the photos.

Yes San Francisco really does exist! It isn't just some foggy place where they say there is a city around you but you can't see it because of the fog, there REALLY is a city there!!!!! This was our first really clear day so we could see the Golden Gate Bridge.

We caught the trolley bus back into the city and walked along their main shopping street Market Street. We needed to buy another bag to cope with the additional luggage we seem to have accumulated ... dunno where it has all come from.

In the afternoon we went to the movies. We saw Sherlock Holmes, it was quite good and at $10.75 for adults and big comfy seats it was a little different to the Australian version.

After the movie we headed to Chinatown for dinner. I have to say it wasn't as good as the New York version but it was OK. They are allowed to have fire crackers so we bought a couple of packets and made a bit of noise throwing them on the ground as we were heading back to the Hotel.

This was our last night in San Francisco, tomorrow we head off to Laid Back LA.Read more