robbo and leeazaa’s travel adventures

Today we hired a tandem bike from a company called Blazing Saddles and rode around to the Golden Gate bridge. The bike hire is extremely popular here – you see hundreds of people riding around on these bikes all the time.

The bridge itself wasn’t THAT spectacular (I prefer the Sydney bridge) but the view from the bridge blows everything else out of the water. San Francisco bay is massive – and the view of the city from the bridge is great.

Once over the bridge, we made our way up to a little town called Sausalito which is a very picturesque little yuppie town. It is home to the Redwood trees which are supposed to be the tallest in the world. We tried to get up to the Old Mill Valley (where the trees are) – but in the end got a bit lost and had to turn back.

Part of the bike hire pass is a ferry ride from Sausalito back to Fisherman’s Wharf. Here is the view of Sausalito as we left – some low clouds were rolling in and down the hills as the ferry pulled away – it was quite a beatiful sight to see.

By this time, our bums were killing us – and my knee was sore from hitting the handlebars on the tandem bike all the time. But we got there – and then made the massive trike back up a ridiculous amount of hills back to our hostel.

All in all, we biked about 40kms and walked about 8km’s. Bloody knackered.

For dinner we had Subway – they have a $5 footlong deal at the moment for all subs so we have been making regular use of that lately.

Tomorrow is a rest day – we plan to get up and watch the rugby through the internet @ 5am and then just take it easy for the rest of the day. Well deserved I think! So likely that there wont be a new blog post tomorrow.

Leeane

Tags: bike, golden gate bridge, san

After all my years of searching, I’ve finally found a bottle-o that sells orgasmicly cheap beer and is conveniently located just 16,000 odd kilometers up the road. OK, so maybe it’s not ‘just around the corner’ but maybe it’s worth it considering the prices.

First up, to my astonishment in the first convenient store I waltzed into I found this little doozy ->

One Litre Can of Asahi Super Dry

That’s right a 1 litre can of Asahi! After I got over the shock of seeing one Litre, let alone a can of Asahi I decided that whatever the cost I would own this can and imbibe the contents. Turns out price is something to write home about too – $3.69 USD! I could maybe get a middy of local beer for that price back home.

It gets stranger, today we went past some dank hole (it might have been hooters actually) that advertised a pint of Fosters Lager for $3.50! To quote the old man, ‘the mind boggles!’. It is ridiculous that we’d pay twice as much for this in Australia, makes me glad that no one actually drinks it back home

Tags: beer, san francisco

We didn’t end up doing the bike tour today – both suffering from a bit of a cold/cough at the moment. Hopefully tomorrow.

Instead, today we walked down to Fisherman’s Wharf. We took the long (and hill-less) route today – twice the distance though. Not sure which made us feel less sore – we ended up doing over 12km’s in total!

This was some random water-feature along the way:

The Maritime Museum is undergoing renovations at the moment and wont re-open till 2009. But in the mean time there are some ships which you can go on (including a submarine USS Pampanito which we will go on later in the week). Here is a photo of a trade/cargo ship they had on display:

We also walked up to Fort Mason – which was just a big hill overlooking the bay – including Alcatraz.

That’s the Golden Gate bridge in the background. The has been a lot of low clouds since we got here which makes the bridge a bit hard to see from a distance. Mind you, even though the temperature is in the low 20’s, we still managed to get a bit burnt today.

We also had some Clam Chowder in a bread bun which seems to be a cult favourite down in Fisherman’s Wharf. It was delicious – will definitely get that again.

Hopefully more to report back on tomorrow.

Leeane.

Tags: san francisco

We started off today by having the free brekkie at the hostel. Bagels, croissants & toast. Ofcourse, Rob couldn’t help but bring down his little tube of vegemite. The europeans must have been intrigued by the smell.

We then headed up through ChinaTown. It is very long and goes on for about 8 blocks. Mostly made up of restaurants, souvenir-type shops and jewellary shops. There were also lots of older women mumbling “dim sum yum yum” to everyone that walks by – trying to get people to go into their restaurants. And one of the ladies said “100% off for you” – we were a bit bewildered by that.

After that we headed to the Embarcadero area – which is next to the Financial District (CBD-area). The Embarcadero is just next to the Bay Bridge (connects Oakland and San Fran) and is where most of the office workers seem to head for their lunch. The Bay Bridge seems to be huge and I am not sure why the Golden Gate bridge gets all the fame and glory- maybe I will find out tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will be heading up to Fisherman’s Wharf again and we will hopefully do a bike ride along the Golden Gate bridge (tandem ofcourse!).

Tags: bridge, chinatown, san francisco

First up – thanks Ben for your comment about tipping. We never would have thought about tipping when we get a drink from a bar 🙁

We got up at the slightly more reasonable time of 11.30am today – so hopefully tomorrow we will be up early enough to catch the free brekkie at our hostel.

We headed down to Fisherman’s Wharf today. Far out! We are knackered. You ain’t seen hills till you seen these ones. We foolishly haven’t used any public transport yet – opting for the exercise of walking everywhere. Having serious doubts about how long that will last for in San Fran though….

Yes we had to walk up this hill (and at least 4 others like it mind you).. strangely enough, going down is just as hard – the gradient is that steep in some places that I had to inch forward as I was scared I would tumble to my death.

As you can imagine, the views from the top are quite good.

That’s Alcatraz in the photo above, we have booked a tour of that for next Tuesday (it’s very popular).

Fisherman’s Wharf is a great place – very tourist orientated but such a contrast to the are of the city we have been in the last couple days.

The main place to be seems to be Pier 39 which has a lot of restaurants and lolly shops and stuff. It also has the Aquarium By The Bay – which we went into and managed to get at least one good photo:

Here’s a photo of some folks turning around the trams at the end of the tram line.

And lastly, we had some good food today – dinner was at PineCrest Diner. And it was everything you would expect from watching movies with diners in them. 24 hour breakfasts and I was in heaven.

So tomorrow I think we will try to let our legs recover a bit and check out ChinaTown and see if we can get some transport pass for the buses and trams.

PS. The weather here isn’t that hot at all. It’s about 21-23 degrees each day, with sun and cloudy patches. Hopefully it gets a bit hotter once we get to Vegas and Texas.

See ya,

Leeazaa

Tags: san francisco

We had big plans for today. Unfortunately we didn’t wake up till 3pm though. Damn jet-lag!

So after getting over the shock of somehow sleeping for 17 hours, we went out for a bit of exploring around the shopping district.

The small part of the city that we explored is so crammed with shops and restaurants its unbelievable. And it just goes on and on forever. It’s like 100 Perth cities put together – and we haven’t even gone into the “main” part of San Fran yet.

We went through the Virgin Megastore, Borders and NikeTown – everything marginally cheaper that Oz – but not amazingly so. We also wanted to go into the Apple store but there was a huge queue spanning a whole city block just to get into the store. iPhone-mania I guess.

We went through Macy’s, Bloomingdales and Nostrada – all are a bit like David Jones – with designer clothes and all that. So as you can imagine, we didn’t stay long in there.

We also went into a place called RiteAid which is a big pharmacy-like store. The store also sells 1.75L of vodka for $8. Crazy stuff.

Oh and by the way, when they say a Starbucks is on every street corner – they reallllyyy do mean it. It’s amazing. I am not a coffee drinker but Rob reckons it’s good stuff.

So to end the short-day we went for some dinner at a place called Piraat Pizza which is just up the road from us. The pizza was great and the appetizer (2 slices of pizza and a salad) was enough to fill us up. I also got a huge glass of coke which I just couldn’t finish. This was our first experience with tipping so we left a bit of extra cash on the bill which the waitress then came and took. Two minutes later she put the change back on our table. We were a bit confused so we left the tip on the table – and hoped they would come and take it once we walked out. Is that how it normally works???

Tomorrow we plan to go into Fisherman’s Wharf which is a good 3.5km’s walk from here. It is the main touristy place here and I think the ferry to Alcatraz leaves from there too. But first, we have to make sure we get up at a reasonable time.

Some random photos below – including the most massive hill I have ever seen – which Rob made us walk up. The photo’s probably don’t do it justice – and I have a feeling I will see bigger hills tomorrow.

Tags: san francisco

Today after we arose from our jet-lagged induced comas we got grifted by your not-so-average gentleman of the street. Let me explain.

We were crossing the street, heading up a near 45 degree hill towards union square when a little black dude with a thick, seriously gooey thick american accent introduced himself as ‘Tyrone’ and engaged us in the 1-potatoe-2-potatoe-3potatoe-4 style handshake. After we briefly exchanged names he said, ‘Let me tell you someting Rawb. I can tell you exactly where and what state you got your shoes.’. There was one catch though, I had to ‘…promise not to laff ’cause I gotta take a bath’. I didn’t have a clue what he meant by that but since there was no easy exit out of this until we reached the top of the hill, we egged him on, naturally doubting what he claimed. It was about this point that I started thinking that maybe my pro-australian Wallabies jersey was a dead give away, but surely that would only nail it down to Australia at best and he was claiming he could wittle it down to the state as well!

At this point I was beginning to suspect we were in for our first mugging however he assured us that he wasn’t a criminal and after asking ME not to beat him up once again claimed that he could use his prescient abilities to tell me where I got my shoes and which state I got ’em – if i promised to not laff cos’ i gotta take a bath. Fine then! I started negotiating the terms but before I could finalise a price he told me, ‘you got yo’ shoes on yo’ feet Rawb! And you in California’. We had to laugh (even though we promised Tyrone we wouldn’t) and naturally I accused him of grifting me however since I did break my promise I flipped him a buck. Hopefully you’ll get that bath you wanted Tyrone.

Tags: san francisco

One thing’s for sure, we are both glad we don’t have another long-haul flight for 3 months. The flight was the most uncomfortable experience ever! I need the 3 months to try to forget about what it is like.

It started by arriving at the airport 6 hours early – thinking we will get good seats by arriving early. Instead, we are told our flight has been cancelled (engineer’s strike??) and that they are trying to push as many people as possible to a United Airlines flight which left at a similar time. Qantas weren’t really that great – we felt like we were downgraded (United can be a bit dodgy) and all we got was a $15 meal voucher.

So by the time we actually got everything sorted we only had a little over an hour left to have lunch and catch our breaths after all the hassles.

The flight itself was … unpleasant. It was packed full because of the Qantas people and I swear the seats are more tightly packed on a 747. The staff were nice and everything but 13 hours is a bloody long time to sit in cramped conditions.

Anyways, once we got off we were (or maybe just me) dreading the customs wait. It turns out that “Customs” just involved getting fingerprinted, photographed and asked a couple questions like “Business or pleasure”. We picked up our bags and expected to walk into a big “Border Security” style area where everyone gets questioned further – but… we we suprised to walk straight out of the airport. 20 minutes all up.

We then got a cab.. yes.. a cab… and took the ride to our hostel. San Fran definitely has a unique style – the housing is just amazing and I freaked out a bit the first time the car passed us on the left.

Anyways, I can’t say much more because we haven’t been outside yet so have no idea where we are in relation to shops and transport! We are both shattered. The hostel seems pretty good. Nice spacious room with a modern bathroom. They also have $5 dinners, free brekkie and free kitchen/laundry facilities – oh and free wireless :). It’s pretty noisy round here but that’s to be expected in inner-city living I guess.

So no photos now cos we most likely will scare you with how we look right now. But hopefully we will be able to do some wandering around tomorrow.

PS> I keep spelling San Francisco wrong – think I have finally got it right now.

Leeane

Tags: san francisco

We did a bit more exploring around Sydney today. We walked across the bridge again and into “The Rocks” Saturday markets – where we made the most of the food samples on offer.

Next we hit up a German beer cafe where the boys (Rob and Nicki) made light work of a 1L stein of beer.

Finally, we went to some big hill with a good view of the harbour. There was also a huge guy with the biggest arms we have ever seen using the pull-up bar there.

So tomorrow we are off to San Francisco!

Tags: sydney

Well – we arrived in Sydney last night and were greeted by a very friendly and chatty Shuttle bus driver – I think we both know his entire life story now. Unfortunately he didn’t know Kirribilli very well so we went around in circles a bit but we eventually got to Carita and Nicki’s place.

Here is the view from their lounge room – very nice!

Today we went exploring around North Sydney and the city.

We started by walking around Kirribilli and visiting the Prime Minister’s house – unfortunately he wasn’t home so we couldn’t pop in to say “hi”.

We then went round to the water and headed into Luna Park, then walked over the bridge into the city.

From there we visited “The Rocks”, Opera House and Hyde Park.

One thing for sure is that Sydney is quite hilly and has lots of stairs. Our legs are killing us! We took some respite and took the train home rather than walk back across the bridge.

Sydney really is a great city  – the transport system and scenery is heads and shoulders better than Perth. The only downsides are the ridiculous traffic, crazy drivers and tolls everywhere.

Not sure what our plans are for the rest of our time here – but if we do anything exciting I will post it up here. Or maybe I will get Rob to post – it’s about time he did I think.

Leeazaa

Tags: sydney