We went to sleep last night at 10:30 and were out for the count. The 8:30 alarm was repeatedly snoozed until I think it gave up at 9:30 or so. Graham (and Jan) then called at about 10:20 but I was still in a stupor (read: asleep) and hit the snooze button again which is the reject button (I think) for calls. Something was funny about that alarm and it was just as I'd figured it was a Newcastle number that it rang again. All seems well and I've booked myself in for a night or two. I have to be careful about these things as my parents are, apparently, away in Scotland so it would be no use turning up on their doorstep. I could pitch the tent in the garden but I imagine the neighbours might be a bit suspicious. At the end of the call Helen is found to be a bit teary. My making arrangements is a concrete sign it's all coming to an end rather rapidly.
We try another (of the three) 24hr diners where I have a rather nice omelette though Helen's eggs and sausages aren't great. The waiting staff weren't on top form. Mind you, nor would I be working in a 24 hour diner. We then went back down the hill to the Information Centre -- we do seem to be handily placed at this YHA -- and picked up 3 day US$10 Muni (public transport) passes. They're not for everything but most things: buses, trolley cars and cable cars.
A ride on the Powell Hyde cable car is the first job and whilst it's neither comfortable nor smooth it's the authentic San Francisco experience. The gripman gives a running guide as we roll along and there are chirps from the other gripmen as we pass: You going mighty fast there, Junior.
says one looking at his watch. Our guy rolls his eyes in an exasperated fashion and said something I missed. One of our passengers quipped We've outrun the cops, twice.
an unlikely contingency, even once. Of course, we climbed on cautiously at a terminus -- where the car is pushed by hand on a round table(!) -- others leapt on as you expect people to do, hanging on to the gun rails.
We leapt off at Lombard St. famous for a one block stretch in the middle (San Francisco is a true grid iron city, the roads are north-south or east-west for at least three miles, ignoring hills) where Russian Hill is so steep they wiggled the road side to side making it the world's crookedest street, an instant tourist attraction and a mecca for car drivers. Surprisingly, the majority of drivers are not rental cars but ordinary people who seem to enjoy the brake fatiguing run down the hill. 
We walked up then after a quick shot of Alcatraz from the top of the hill -- surely it's not that far to swim? -- we walked a couple of blocks to the next bus stop. 
One of the great things about SF is the mix of architectural styles all of which seem to fit. We missed the first bus, they drive on the right here too, but made the second to take us to the Presidio, a huge plot of land (several square miles) at the southern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, which until as recently as 1994 was a military area. Now there's a free bus service that takes you round the rather pleasant park. Our first shot of the bridge, at Lombard Gate, was spoilt by construction workers finishing off a very large hole in the ground. This turns out to be the 2300 space car park that George Lucas is building below some attraction of his.
At the southern end of the bridge you have to wander around a bit to find a suitable photo opportunity as several trees make life a bit awkward. 
You can amble across the bridge, taking care to avoid the bicycle menace. At the moment the first couple of hundred yards have extra high fencing for the seismic retrofit project (the city doesn't want its landmark falling into the bay if there's a big quake) which I thought was to reduce jumpers [people jumping rather than warm clothing which you need because it's really quite a cold gale blowing across]. But no, the fencing returns to the solid 4 foot high jobbie across most of the bridge.
We stopped partway across to the first tower and peered over the edge. Ignoring the `Jump Here' grafitti we gazed into the rather murky depths below. One of the bits of detritus disappeared, and another appeared. We couldn't quite see but they couldn't be birds, they were getting too wet, they must be seals, so we took some pictures. We ventured to the south tower and looking over the edge, in the relative calm of the leeward side of the tower, we saw a seal. Quite obviously a seal and somewhat larger than the things we saw earlier. So maybe they were seabirds...
Given the `howling gale ' we declined the trip to the middle of the bridge as the view back over the bay and city was just fine from here. We headed back and caught another bus up to Golden Gate Park, a couple of miles up the road. The park is claimed to be the world's largest man made park (3 miles long by half a mile wide) and contains a number of attractions. As we walked along the pavement noting the molehills and commenting on how neither of us had seen a mole Helen stopped and said she'd seen one. We then poked cameras at the hole only to see a pile of earth shoved up to block out the light. Close.
At the top of the hill, past lots of molehills that were all closely inspected, there was a large green lake. There wasn't a lot to see in the lake -- it was a very opaque green -- until at one point we both saw a head disappear. A few moments later another small froglike head appeared above water for a while then disappeared. These were hard to see and our guesses ranged from frogs through caimans to fish that liked to stick their heads above water for a long time.
We moved on and a few steps away moley stuck his head up. We've got him. We focussed in and waited and sure enough he came up a few times. Towards the end he turned and faced the camera. A gopher! Of course, a mole with bleached hair. He then shut off his hole and we moved on this time to a spot where we could clearly see the creatures of the lake were terrapins. D'oh!
A little further on is the Japanese Tea Garden, which we entered for free [purely by chance] at two minutes past five (when the admissions desk closed), a rather pleasant little corner of the world. Lovely manicured little trees -- not quite bonsai, only four or five feet high -- and astonishingly clear water. After a while I decided the reason was the liberal spread of copper pennies in the water. The metal must kill off all the algae. And most of the fish as we only saw two. The Strybing Arboretum had closed at 4:30 and we weren't sure what was in the Academy of Sciences so we ambled up the road to the edge of the park.
Heads down staring at molehills was interrupted by a flutter. Looking up a bird of prey landed on the lampost in front of us. It also had a hummingbird creature havering around it complete with hooked beak. We caught a few seconds of it before it flew across the street. Helen went to chase it and must have a terrific shot of it sat in a cherry blossom tree. It's obviously urban nature day today.
We caught the bus and headed back into the city right down Market St. to a rather premature final stop several blocks away from the waterfront. We stopped for refreshments in a Starbucks -- mental note: must buy some shares -- before trooping down against the wind to the Ferry Building. We took a peek at the Bay Bridge which is almost as spectacular but isn't painted Internation Orange. We jumped on the trolley car and rumbled around to Pier 39.
I chose to jump off because Pier 39 is mentioned a lot and is next to Fisherman's Wharf. Pier 39 [it turns out] is an awful tourists-cum-hither place. Tourist shops and restaurants in a theme park higgledy-diggledy layout. Bizarrely, though educational, there's even a potted history of the troubles the owner had in getting the place built in 1980. We were on the point of leaving when we saw both a `Photo Spot' sign, sponsored by Kodak, and the sun setting behind Marin County. We stepped forward then heard then saw the cries of seals.
We headed up to the end of the pier where a large colony of Californian Sea Lions lounge around on floating decks sleeping, pushing, fighting, roaring and swimming. It's quite a surprise to find at the end of this gaudy attraction. 
We wandered up the waterfront at Fisherman's Wharf unsure what all the fuss is about. There's plenty of tourist clothes shops and bargain for the price of your camera shops and plenty of seafood restaurants. But it's not too pretty. Maybe the chill wind was having an effect by now. We jumped on the bus and suffered a racist drunk for the entire journey before trying a restaurant just up the road from the hostel where we had some good tucker and a nice bottle of wine. That lot, of course, cost more than the room...
HI Grant & Mason, San Francisco N37.78644 W122.40950 Elev. 12m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.