Monday, October 18, 2010

San Francisco–Day 11

Today was my last day in Tokyo before flying out to San Francisco in the evening. Thus I had about half a day to kill which I decided to spend in and around Shinjuku.

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I walked from my hotel pas the Skinjuku station and into the eastern part.

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Even in these bustling areas you find the occasional escape to serenity of a temple somewhere behind the main drag.

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Shinjuku is another that place that would really appeal to those with a shopping fetish.

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When I arrived at this temple there was actually a weddings in progress.

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So it was farewell to Tokyo and hello to the long plane ride across the Pacific touching down in San Francisco at about midday.

I was picked up my Tim Carney from SFLink and my US odyssey began. First point of call was a Costco, which is basically a warehouse shopping experience where you can buy everything under one roof.  The reason for my visit here was two other Aussies had been dropped off here by Tim while he went to get me from the airport.

After a visit to another US shopping experience, Frys (an electrical retailer), we headed back to my hotel so I could grab a shower and change and get ready for some more site seeing.

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After picking up the two other Aussies Tim took us into the heart of San Francisco, firstly to see the town hall (a replica of the US Capitol building).

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We then headed to Lombard street. This is the famous really windy street that you see on just about all of the shots of San Francisco. As you see another San Francisco institution (the cable car) also goes right by. It actually stops at the top of the street so that tourists can grab that essential San Francisco shot.

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The interesting thing about Lombard street is that you can actually drive down it.

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All the streets in this area are very steep but perhaps not as famous. Tim took as a street or two over and performed another one of those essential San Francisco experiences, the ‘street chase’.

This is where you go racing over the edge and get some ‘air’ as you go barrelling down the hill. The above shot shows us waiting for the traffic in front to clear before we commence our ‘run’. Our course we had to do this a few times just to get ‘it right’. All I can say is I’m glad it wasn’t my car, but a a huge amount of fun no less.

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We then headed across town to Coit tower which offers command views of the Bay.

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A bit hard to see but in the distance is Lombard street.

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You can actually travel to the top of Coit tower for even more commanding views of the Bay but inside the base are some very interesting murals.

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A few other favourite sites you can see from Coit Tower include Alcatraz

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Transamerica (even though this shot was taken from down on the waterline).

Tim then took us to a wonderful restaurant overlooking the bay near Pier One called the Slanted Door.

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We ended the night with a night tour of the city and across the Golden Gate Bridge to the other side to take some night shots, which you can see didn’t really turn out.

Back the hotel for some well earned rest to ready for another day touring San Francisco.