San Francisco Part Two

Part two of San Francisco began with a tour of Alcatraz. Sitting just out from the San Francisco bay, Alcatraz is a prominent, but small, island that holds an immense amount of history. Our tour was truly fascinating, and the island itself is as beautiful as it is interesting. I'll let the photos reveal what this infamous penitentiary is all about.

In the late 60's when Alcatraz prison was closed down, there was a big Native Indian group that occupied the island, hence the writing on the walls. Writing like the above can be found all around the prison.

A shot of north San Francisco bay from Alcatraz. 

More of the writing left from the native Indians.

This little building wasn't connected to the main cell house but it turns out it was the morgue. You could see right inside which was kind of creepy.

Despite being such a prominent and influential prison, Alcatraz was only very small, roughly holding about 220 inmates at a time. In total, I think they only held 1200 inmates, but some of them were repeats so the number was less than it appeared. 

One of three rows of cells in the main cell block. 

A typical cell in Alcatraz.

The only portion of light illuminating the cells inside. 

The prison kitchen

This was Cell Block D which held the worse inmates. The few doors to the right of the photo were solitary confinement cells or "the hole', if you want to use jail terms.

Some of the nasty pasty inmates that were held in Cell Block D, such as Al Capone, and The Birdman of Alcatraz.

This was inside one of the solitary confinement cells. Its looks nice and bright thanks to the camera flash but it was pretty much pitch black, which made it a very eerie place to be.

"The hole". What a lovely place to be. The Birdman spent most of his sentence in this hole in the wall for bad behavior. 

What was once the prison library.

The gun gallery which is where the Alcatraz riot began. Google it, it's pretty interesting.

Downtown San Francisco from a little peep hole in the cell house walls. This little peephole basically gave you a glimpse of what you were missing out on. 

A scale model of Alcatraz Island. 

Back in the day this was the prison wardens house, but the native Indians burnt it down during their occupation of Alcatraz Island.

The communication/guard room.

View of the lighthouse and the wardens house from the base of the island.

This just shows you how close San Francisco was to Alcatraz, or the other way round. It was only 1.5 mile swim across, but the icy waters will kill you before you make it. What a stunning view of the city though. 

This massive sign at the very point of Alcatraz island was basically deterring anyone from aiding others from escaping prison. 

Our little ship that took us to and from the island.

Of all the amazing stories of escape and seeing the general conditions of the prison, my favorite part of Alcatraz was the unofficial tagline describing the penitentiary itself (described by prisoners). Famously quoted, "If you break the rules, you go to prison. If you break the rules in prison, you go to Alcatraz". It was a very powerful summation of what Alcatraz represented and how it was perceived by civilians and inmates alike.

After our tour around "The Rock" we had a last wander around Fisherman's Wharf to get some food and some last minute souvenirs.

We had to get one last glimpse of the ridiculous amount of seals at the wharf. They actually stunk really bad this time we visited so we left pretty much straight away.

Fisherman's wharf. 

After our long day walking around Alcatraz and Fishermans Wharf, we decided to head to the Golden Gate Bridge look out point. A couple of buses and some long walks later we finally arrived, at the perfect time as well.... just as the sun was beginning to set.

Downtown in the distance. Just shows you how far away the golden gate is. 

This is the road our hotel was on, you could actually see our hotel just past the H & M building. It was such a great location, especially with the cable car out the front and shops either side. 

Being our last night we had to go and get some more good Chinese which involved another ride on the cable car.

It was actually crazy fun riding on the side of the cable car. Even though it didn't go very fast, it was nonetheless somewhat exhilarating. 

Our little hotel room right in the heart of downtown San Fran. Please ignore the messiness, we were in the middle of packing as we were leaving the next day.

Typical smoke coming out of the manhole. 

A couple of cable cars waiting to take passengers. 

On our last day in San Fran before we had to go to the airport, we decided to enjoy the nice weather and head out to the burbs to get some nice food and some more Smitten Ice Cream.

Just a little hot dog stand. 

After a nice brunch and some ice cream it was beer time. Conveniently enough a small outdoor beer garden was right next to Smitten, serving out of a shipping container. 

The little beer garden, out the front of the shipping container.

Typically, I had to get some Clam Chowder. Its kind of a thing in San Francisco,  or more so Fisherman's wharf. 

So that was San Franciso, hopefully you can now understand why we loved it so much. It just had this vibe, this edge, a coolness and/or hip feeling about it without being hipster, which is a very important thing. Lucky for us, our next stop is Seattle, which actually carried a similar vibe, despite raining and being cold 24 hours a day, for the 3 days we were there. But more on that later.

So until then, only 4 more sleeps!
Kristian & Lauren.

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.