Oh I Love You San Francisco, Part I.

Finally, its been a long time coming, but we made it to San Francisco. This was one of my top 3 most anticipated places on our trip, and I must say, it did not disappoint. It was everything we thought it would be, and more. But I'll save my rant for another time, because I could go on for a long time on why and how I love San Francisco. So instead, let the photo's explain our story.

Our very first night in San Francisco was New Years eve, so here we are on our way out for some dinner before the fireworks.

Because New York is 4 hours in front of San Fran we decided to run back to the hotel after dinner to watch the ball drop. 

Around 11.30pm we made the trek down to the water front to bring in the New Year and watch the fireworks. We thought these lights on these buildings were pretty cool.

Some of the awesome fireworks that went for around 15 minutes.

The next day was actually our 5 year anniversary so we headed out to fishermans wharf for some lunch. 

While at the wharf we found a sea lion viewing platform and man were there lots of seals. They were so entertaining that we could have watched them all day.

A shot of the city over the bay. 

So many lazy sea lions!

The famous Alcatraz from a distance. We did do a tour around the prison but more on that in the next post.

Very hazy but you can just see the Golden Gate Bridge.

Cool tree-lined alley.

Dinner at a typical american diner.

As a present for me on our anniversary, Lauren had bought tickets to the San Jose Sharks game (my beloved team) the next night which was amazing. We were 10 rows from the glass, which as you can see from the photo below was incredibly close. As usual, it was amazing; but it also helped that the sharks put on a show to smash the Edmonton Oilers 5-1. Spectacular.

The view from our seats, pregame. 

Boooooo Edmonton!

If you look closely, the players actually come out of a shark head with glowing red eyes!

Go Sharks!

Winner winner chicken dinner!

The turn table for the tram at the end of the line, when we got back into the city from San Jose.

The next day we decided we needed to get a better scope of San Francisco, so what better place than to do so on a small mountain. And what better small mountain than Twin Peaks, the most iconic viewpoint of San Francisco that has been starred in many movies and TV shows. While it was a bit of a journey to get up their, the bus, tram and hike really paid off. The view was stunning, with a full 360 degree view of the downtown area, bay area, Alcatraz, golden gate bridge and all surrounding suburbs. Check out the images below for a better look.

The other peak, or twin. 

View of San Francisco city from the top of Twin Peaks.

The two radio towers signaling twin peaks on the horizon. 

The Golden Gate from the top of Twin Peaks

Another shot from Twin Peaks. 

This was a little ice creamy we found out in the burbs, and its major draw card is the fact that they make their ice cream to order. Yes, its not frozen a couple of days prior, it is made directly in front of you, instantly. 

Only 3 flavors, but it didn't matter, the chocolate was crazy good. 

The ice cream being made right in front of us just after we ordered. They use liquid nitrogen to instantly freeze the ice cream so it is literally made to order. And wow, the taste says all!

The most creamiest and yummiest ice cream ever.

Just a little sculpture in the middle of a square located in a typical neighborhood. 

A typical row of houses in San Francisco.

Now these houses have been used in heaps of movies and TV shows, and I think they're called the painted ladies. For some reason they are a major tourist attraction, and while they were cool, with a good view, they were just nice houses. 

As we hadn't had some good "Hongkonese" as Lauren calls it in a while we manged to scope out a good place to eat in chinatown. It was that good that we went back twice during our time in San Fran.

To get to and from chinatown you had to take the very famous San Francisco cable car, unless you wanted to walk up and down hills for quite a while. Lucky for us most of the time we took the cable car it was full so we got to stand on the edge which was pretty cool

Hanging on to the side of the cable car was pretty cool but the cars came pretty close to you.

View from the side of the cable car.

While you may not recognize the name of this street, once you see the picture below you'll immediately know what its all about. 

Yes its that squiggly road, or the S's, or whatever you want to call them. Thankfully We only walked down it, because up looked like a killer to go up!

As you can tell by the title, that was not all in San Francisco, so without spoiling any more of our time in SF, you'll have to wait until our next post.

So until then,
Kristian & Lauren.