San Francisco - Part 2

 San Fran through the mist as we crossed the bay one morning.

We also bought tickets for the guided, narrated Hop-on Hop-off Bus Tour.   The bus starts from Union Square to get there we walked through Chinatown.

In Chinatown most of the buildings are built in the Chinese style, street signs are written in Chinese and almost everyone we passed was speaking Chinese, even the street lamps were Chinese style.

Almost everywhere someone was trying to entice you into this fabulous restaurant or this wonderful shop that sold fantastic items or had fabulous food, all at amazing prices and, naturally, the absolute best quality you’d get in China Town!

We loved the lanterns strung across the street.

Once on the tour bus we found a seat on the open top deck, our tour guide was excellent and gave us a good overview of San Fran and just how much there is to see and do. 

The Ferry Building on the San Fran waterfront. 

Among other places the tour took us over the Golden Gate Bridge to the Vista Point on the Sausalito side, that particular day the bridge was covered in freezing mist, suddenly sitting on the open top deck didn’t seem like such a good idea!

As the bus waited at a stop in the Haight Ashbury District, where all the hippies hung out in the ‘Summer of Love’ in the 1960’s, a couple of aging hippies, complete with sandals, long grey hair and tie dye clothes walked past and wished us all ‘Peace and Love Man’.   And yes, that really did happen.

Some of the many multi coloured houses we saw all around town, each house is probably worth in the region of £5 million or more.      

One area was once so dangerous that back in the Al Capone era the cops demanded and got an extra $10.00 for working there.  It became known as the Tenderloin District because that’s what the cops said they could afford to buy with the extra cash, although they were also told they might not live to enjoy it!  I’m not exactly sure a steak is worth dying for!

This building was near City Hall, but I forget which one it is, and

again, I’ve forgotten which museum this statue was outside.

Our guide also pointed out various interesting buildings as we drove around and as in all American cities tucked in between the huge high rises there were some turn of the century buildings with lovely architectural detail. 

We were surprised to discover that San Fran has a real homeless problem our guide warned us that in some areas of the city, especially at night, you could be hassled, quite aggressively sometimes.   A couple behind us on the bus said that it had happened to them and was quite unnerving.   San Fran is incredibly expensive and has even overtaken Manhattan as being the most expensive place in the US.

Have fun, we are!