James & Charlotte's Travel Blog: "When the Sunday sun shines down on San Francisco Bay" Beautiful South, Don't Marry Her

Thursday 6th April

We were weary after our night time snorkelling but we were still chirped out of bed pretty early by our alarms. 6am to be precise and we had an hour to get the odds and sods packed and ready for our pre booked taxi ride to Kona airport. We were nice and prompt in the hostel car park but it didn't take us long to realise that we shouldn't rely on a pre poked taxi in a place like Hawaii. More than once we heard someone mutter “must be on Hawaiian time”, and our taxi must have been running on it that morning. Fortunately, we had a back up plan. I'd signed up to Uber the previous day, so I logged on to the app, set up our requested trip, clicked book and within 2 minutes, our bags were onboard and we were driving towards the airport. For those of you who aren't aware of Uber, it is essentially a taxi service but you can do it all online, including the payments. The app even tells you how long your driver will be, their name and the make and number plate of their vehicle. On top of that, it gives you an estimated price, which we could see was significantly cheaper than what a taxi would have cost us. We didn't give a second thought to the booked cab and settled in with our French expat driver, who's name we've unfortunately forgotten. We had the standard “I'm from Europe” chat, by which I mean Brexit and terrorism were the main talking points. After about a 20 minute ride, we arrived at Kona airport, which looked incredibly disorganised. Thanks to the idiot who booked the cab for us the previous day, we were also running quite late, so made as quick as we could in dropping our bags, printing our boarding passes and getting through to the departure gate. Despite our rush, we fell foul of US paranoia once more when we dropped our bags off. Mine was scanned and they requested the padlock code which I gave them. They told me a bottle of wine had flagged up and that they were checking it for explosives. We had the option to wait and stay with the bag or trust them to repack it when they find everything in order. I trusted them as we were in a rush, so I left them to it, went through security and forgot about it. We need not have worried about all the rushing, as just as we were about to board, we were informed that our flight was delayed for 45 minutes due to unscheduled maintenance, which isn't the most reassuring thing to hear when you are just about to board a flight, even if it is one that lasts no more than half an hour. After about an hour, we were on the ground again, back in Honolulu and ready to catch our flight to San Francisco. We just had to grab our luggage and go through security again. When I lifted my bag off the conveyor belt, the puddle of liquid underneath didn't fill us with confidence. I'll refrain from swearing but Charlotte and I were absolutely livid with the imbeciles that are the American customs service, or the TSA as they prefer to be called. I could probably come up with a few suggestions as to what TSA stands for, but I'll keep it in my imagination. We emptied my bag out right there to find the inevitable broken bottle of wine, one which John from the Ake Ake vineyard in Kerikeri had kindly given to us as a gift. We deemed it no coincidence that the security team had made it clear that the wine is what they wanted to look at in Kona and that it was the wine that had smashed. We were pretty sure it was poorly repacked and then thrown without any sense of delicacy onto a conveyor belt at either end. The fact that the bottle of wine had already made 3 successful flights was testament to the fact that I had packed it pretty well in my bag in the first place and that the second a paranoid Yank starts mucking around, it breaks. Obliviously, not only had we lost the wine but pretty much my entire bag was soaked through with a crisp, dry white from Northland, New Zealand. We were almost at the point where we could only laugh but the next customs or security officer who would dare to mess with one of our bags would be in big trouble. And then we'd probably be deported, which would be disappointing but would make for a pretty funny blog post. I assumed something could be done about it so wandered round Honolulu baggage claim, brandishing my broken bottle and soaking wet towel that had borne the brunt of the leak to look for someone to shout at. Eventually, I got sent to baggage help and the man, to his credit was incredibly helpful and polite, which went a long way to calming my mood. He told us we'd have to make a claim to the TSA via a phone number or email address. I wouldn't be able to do that until our arrival on the mainland, so had to carefully wrap up my shattered bottle of wine back in my towel, re-pack my bag and drop it off for our next flight. It was all a bit farcical, to be travelling with an incredibly dangerous weapon, albeit stowed in the hold.

We were still shaking our heads when we boarded our next flight to San Francisco. It was a bit of a tedious 5 hour flight, as there was no complimentary in flight entertainment. The flight was incredibly smooth though, until just as we started our descent into the airport. A large storm had been due to hit the Northern California coast at about 8pm and seeing as we were landing at 9pm, the storm was well and truly underway. After an excruciating descent we landing with a huge bump but safe and sound. Outside, rain was pouring, which was quite a nice change from the humidity of Hawaii. We went through arrivals, picked up our bags, with no surprises this time and looked for the best way into the city. Eventually, we plumped for Uber again, as it was much cheaper than a cab or a shuttle and with the metro, we just didn't fancy the 15 minute walk in the pouring rain at the end. We were dropped off right outside our hostel, which was handy and we checked in and were pleased to find yet another private room and ensuite bathroom. Despite being almost 11pm, our first job was to get a load of wine soaked washing in and keep our fingers crossed that it would smell a bit better afterwards. An hour later, it was dry and there wasn't a whiff of wine at all, which was a bit of a relief. At almost 1am, we finally managed to get into bed and relax after a busy day of travelling.

Friday 7th April

After a bit of a lie in, we got ourselves freshened up and hit the town. We'd picked out a few things from our book and map, so we had a vague idea of where we wanted to go. We didn't start off too well however, and were immediately heading in the wrong direction. We just rolled with it though and still managed to find our way to Chinatown pretty easily. I'd visited San Francisco before and I was a bit embarrassed to admit that I'd never got to Chinatown, so it was nice to be doing something new in a familiar city. The Chinatown in San Fran is rather large and is well known for being the largest Chinese community outside of Asia. After a quick coffee at a nearby Starbucks, we headed through the dragon gate, meandered in and out of the gift shops and then continued on through underneath strung out Chinese lanterns. We kept a vow we'd made to ourselves that we would buy the first good pin badge we found, rather than wander for hours looking for the cheapest version in order to save 10 cents. Our next destination after Chinatown was a famous street called Lombard street, another incredibly popular tourist destination that I'd missed on my precious visit. Lombard street is a famous street that gets featured in film and to quite a lot due to its unusual layout. To avoid being a steep road straight down a hill, it squiggles left a right in a series of tight bends. There was high amount of traffic, made up completely of tourists in rented cars filming their descent in a go pro camera poking out of the window attached to a selfie stick. Once we reached the top of the curly road, we appreciated the view then headed down towards the bay. We were heading for the sight that is arguably San Francisco’s most famous, the Golden Gate Bridge. We followed a walkway that ran right next to the bay and led to a few good spots to get a good view of the bridge. We stopped on our way to pick up some lunch at a nearby supermarket. The only thing letting us down was the weather. The dark, low cloud was taking away from the bridges “goldeness”. On a sunny day it really does shine but for us, it just looked brown. We still took a couple of snaps and enjoyed the view before heading back towards downtown, keeping a watchful eye on the even darker clouds approaching from the Pacific behind us. The tiredness from our travels the day before were catching up with us after all the walking we'd been doing, so we decided to catch the famous San Francisco cable car back to Union Square and head back to the hostel. It was a bit of a wait for the cable car due to the long queue and by the time we got back it was gone 5. With another busy day to come, we relaxed and got some admin done, like complaining about the smashed bottle of wine and tucking into our tuna and pasta for dinner.

Saturday 8th April

We tried our best to get out of bed nice and early but just couldn't resist a bit of a lie in, as we were still feeling the 3 hour time change. We weren't too late though and did actually make it down to the kitchen before it closed, unlike the day before. The hostel we were staying at did offer a free breakfast of make your own pancakes but as we'd picked up some bread and spreads, we tucked in to them instead, leaving the pancakes to the hordes of Spaniards that had colonised the kitchen. After brekkie, we got our things together and headed out to brave the wild weather. When we'd got up, it had been pouring with rain but by the time we got out it had eased a bit. We were heading for pier 33, which is where the ferries depart to ship all the tourists out to Alcatraz island. It was lucky we left with plenty of time, as our route took us through Chinatown’s shopping streets, which were heaving with the local Chinese doing their Saturday morning shopping. By the time we arrived at pier 33, the rain had stopped and the clouds had cleared, which made the short wait we had for our 11am ferry much more bearable than it could have been. Alcatraz was one of the places I had managed to get around to visiting on my previous trip but I'd forgotten most of it and was looking forward to a refresh. We picked up our tickets and settled on to the boat for the short trip over to ‘the rock’, to use its nickname. As I'm sure a lot of you know, Alcatraz was an infamous maximum security prison located on an island in the middle of San Francisco Bay. Since it was closed down due to high running fees in the early 1960’s, it had become one of San Francisco’s top tourist attractions. We disembarked the boat and were immediately greeted by a park ranger who ran over some of the ground rules such as no eating, no smoking, no having fun whatsoever, blah, blah, blah and then we were free to venture onwards by ourselves. There was a film to watch but we skipped that and chose to head straight for the audio tour of the main cell block which was located at the top of the island up a few hills. The audio tour brought many memories back and was just as enjoyable second time round. Even Charlotte said how much she enjoyed it and it's very rare to get such a sure answer from her. The tour took us round some cells and blocks that had been given nicknames such as Broadway and Times Square, as well as through the old library, warden’s office, solitary confinement cells and the dining room. The audio tour described the dining room as the most dangerous room in the whole prison, as it would contain a lot of inmates, all armed with a knife, fork and spoon. One time, they got so fed up with the terrible spaghetti that was on offer, that they all flipped over the tables in unison and were ready to riot. The guards alleviated the problem by slowly smashing 3 windows to get the inmates attention and then giving a short blow on a whistle. The inmates simply filed out of the dining room and returned to their cells. We were also told about some inmates who planned an escape, which they succeeded in doing by digging a hole in their cells and escaping through the back service corridor before plunging into the freezing waters and wild currents of San Francisco Bay. The only thing is, nobody knows if they made the mile and a quarter swim to the mainland. The guards on the audio guide seemed to think they drowned in the bay, whereas the ex cons reckoned they made it and escaped to South America, as they knew the escapees had been learning Spanish prior to their escape. One of the highlights of the island is the stunning view of downtown San Francisco. With the day turning out pretty nice, the city was shimmering across the rather grey waters of the bay. From our angle, we could see the steep streets descending the hills all the way down to the edge of the bay. They looked like rivers running down to the water and gave the city a slight look of symmetry. Once we'd finished the audio tour, we returned our sets and headed out to have a look at some of the places that didn't feature. Due to being a rock, in the middle of water, the island has become a home to numerous different types of seabirds and as we wandered around we spotted numerous gulls, some cormorants down by the waters edge and a couple of lone Canada geese that had plonked themselves up on the roof of a building and a wall respectively. We checked out the weather beaten exercise yard where the inmates had played baseball, bridge and just got as much fresh air as they possibly could. After a few hours, we reckoned we'd seen enough, so we headed back down to the ferry landing and ate our lunch whilst we waited. When we were back on the mainland, we followed the crowds that were heading towards Pier 39, which is sort of like Brighton pier, except instead of amusements there's hundreds of shops and instead of thrill rides there's California sea lions. The sea lions haul themselves out of the chilly waters and sun themselves on numerous pontoons next to the pier. None of the shops really appealed to us, so we just browsed in the windows of a couple and then headed further along the bay, towards Fisherman’s Wharf. Our guide book had told us that we just had to have so crab chowder from one of the numerous stalls near the wharf, so we ordered some, that came served in a bread roll. We only went for one, as we'd both had lunch already and were pretty full. One was plenty, although we could have had one each as both the chowder and the bread roll was delicious. We continued even further on from Fisherman’s Wharf to Ghirardelli Square. Once upon a time, the square had been the headquarters of the Ghirardelli chocolate company but since the company was taken over, it's now a shopping area and public square. There is still a Ghirardelli chocolate and sundae shop, which we ventured into but only in search for free samples. We received one, which was very tasty but didn't convince us to shell out $4 for a bar of chocolate that wasn't Cadbury’s. We'd had a long day, with lots of walking, so we decided to call it a day after a quick visit to the supermarket. Our hostel was located on the other side of the steep San Franciscan hills, so we still had to huff and puff our way up them and then back down the other side in order to get back and take the weight off of our feet. It was pretty much 6pm when we arrived but due to our late second lunch of crab chowder, we left our pasta dinner to much later.

Sunday 9th April

For our final morning in San Francisco, we decided to make the most of the free breakfast that was on offer in the hostel. It was cook your own pancakes, using ready prepared batter but it was free, so we couldn't knock it. We forced our way through the Spaniards, who seemed to think making pancakes was a spectator sport and made ourselves a couple each. For a first try, they weren't too bad and when dowsed in maple syrup, they were really nice and incredibly filling. After brekkie, it was time to check out, so we swept the room and stored our bags behind the reception. As we didn't have a bus until later that night, we killed a bit of time at the hostel and then headed out for one final stroll around the city by the bay. Seeing as we'd only seen the Golden Gate Bridge through thick cloud and from Alcatraz, we decided to walk all the way to it to get a view of city and get a good snap in front of the bridge itself. It was a long old trek but it was a sunny day, so we were just happy to be out and about and enjoying the city. As it was a Sunday, the crowds of pedestrians and bikes heading towards the bridge were thick but we set a good pace. It was still packed when we arrived but there were plenty of quiet spots to take a good photo. Charlotte was slightly reluctant to actually go on the bridge but after some coaxing, she relented and we got a little way on so we could look back on the city. By the time we turned around and ate lunch, it was pushing 3, so we headed back in the direction of the hostel. We slowly walked back over the hills of San Fran, stopping briefly at Union Square, which didn't have much to offer other than crazy people and shops. When we got back to the hostel, we cooked ourselves up some early dinner, so we weren't hungry for our travel that evening. After finishing, we didn't bother to hang around and walked the 25 minutes to the bus station downtown. We had a 3 hour wait for our bus but with night falling fast, we'd rather have waited at the station for that long than walk there in the dark. It was a bit of a tedious wait, with a noisy child behind us but we eventually set off at 10, but where were we headed?