San Francisco Vacation Easter Weekend

This Easter, Mike and I went to visit San Francisco. I'd never been there, it is a good weekend destination for us as it is so close. We got a great seat sale on it too so it seemed like a good destination. We also considered it as one of the only places in the states we might consider moving to. However after going, we still don't feel it beats Vancouver.

We stayed at the Palace Hotel which I got a great rate on at hotwire.com. I recommend it to everyone! Great deals!

When we got there, we did our usual thing of just
wandering around our hotel's neighborhood. We were very close to Union Square so lots of things to see. There were the usual street performers, but here was something new. A rat on a cat on a dog! The dog was slowly walking down the street and his master had a plastic container he was collecting change and bills in. I'd never seen anything like it. All animals looked well cared for and well fed and the cat and the rat seemed to really be trying to take a little nap.

The below is Union Square. It is basically a


physical square with many nice stores surrounding it. Macy's, Sax Fifth Avenue and Tiffany and Co. to name a few. Mike and I found again that in this neighborhood that you could throw a stone in any direction and hit a Lacoste, a Coach or a Bebe, but you had to walk a while to find something to eat.

The flower were particularly nice in Union Square.

For dinner the first night we wen't to John's Grill.
It was within walking distance of our place and

looked busy inside and the menu was decent looking so we went in. It was very good. I had a sole dish that was really good with lots of veg and we ordered a bottle of wine that was one of the cheaper ones on the menu and it was a great cab sav from 2005. You'd never get it in Vancouver or Fredericton on a restaurant menu for that price. ("Irony", try it out if you like)

The place has been around since 1908 and is very classic looking inside with old pictures of famous people who visited it in it's hay day.

Below Mike is standing beside a trolley. We didn't ride one as I had when I was there with web 2.0 conference and Mike wasn't interested.

I recommend it at least once though. It is very cool the way
they work and the work the driver does to brake and















turn. Also above is a turning station. People gather around to take pictures of them turning. We got to see what the round house that is near us used to be used for for the big trains.
Since it was Easter Weekend there were many windows with all the chocolate displayed. This from a Swiss chocolate maker was one of the more elaborate.
San Francisco has some hills. Man! We walked from our hotel to Coit Tower and there were some serious hills involved. Our conversation the whole way was basically the disadvantages of the hills. You'd be exhausted bringing groceries home. You couldn't ride a bike in this town for sure. If you tripped walking in heels you could fall and just tumble forever before you could stop yourself.
So this is Coit tower. We didn't pay to go on a tour up it, but we did go in and walk around a bit. There were all these colorful murals inside about the history of the city. Outside were great views of the city.


You could see Alkatraz (photo with stars and stripes) and the Golden Gate bridge.
Here I am by one of the murals. Also it is extremely windy in San Fran! Mike and I look really windswept in almost every photo.

Here you can see the Golden Gate bridge and also Lombard Street to the left which is know as the crooked street.
After Coit tower, we took a bus to Pier 39. The transit in San Fran seems extremely cheap compared to Vancouver.
Pier 39 is a bit like a fair ground. There is a merry go round, a bungee bouncer ride for kids and tons of fried seafood, treats and places to have a beer. There is also a lot of shopping. You can get fresh saltwater taffy, a rainbow of bath salts or visit the Giradelli chocolate outlet that is there.
There were also fantastic fresh waffle cones and the smell was intoxicating. I couldn't decide between a cone, fresh mini doughnuts or a fresh pretzel for dessert after my popcorn shrimp for lunch.

Also at Pier 39 are the sea lions. They've constructed wharfs just for them to keep them off the docks for the boats.

The sun there and are quite amusing to watch.
They roar at each other and knock each other off when sunning.

I counted about 120 on the wharfs and I knew there are probably quite a few in the water hunting as well.

Quite a population!

We also went to the conservatory of flowers. It is a big green house with a lot of beautiful flowers inside.















We also took a walk by the Japanese Tea Garden, but decided we had seen enough plants for the day.

I'm going to finish this post in a second listing as we did a lot!

To be continued and still to see: Haight-Ashbury, The Painted Ladies, Little Italy, Japantown and the Cherry Blossom Festival and Alcatraz!