I have not updated my blog in the last few days because:

a. I have been plain lazy
b. A chipmunk took control of my laptop and I couldn't use it
c. Work has been piling up on my desk, and I'm trying to finish it
d. Too many (coxing/rowing) outings in the last few days cos of training camp

You can now decide which of the above is true and which is not. I must say option b is quite a a convincing one. ;p

---

San Francisco

So after 9 days in the East Coast, I fly off to San Francisco, CA on 13 Jan 07 and where I was to meet up with my travel companion - Chea Lu.

The first day we went wandering on a bicycle which we rented from the hostel. It turns out that it wasn't the best of days to be out, for SF was shrouded in a thick blanket of fog. And Chea Lu will later share her life changing experience of how she spent a whole day cycling, when she's only done a max of <30 mins previously. :)

This was as much of the Golden Gate Bridge we could see on Day 1.

Just to show that I was on a bike and we were on the Golden Gate Bridge... ;p

The Golden Gate Bridge on the 2nd day we went back, bright and sunny this time, by bus that is... =X

This is the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park - which I think has a very quaint oriental feel to. Of course, we were also joking about how everyone who was working in the JAPANESE tea garden wasn't actually Japanese, but chinese/taiwanese/hk-er... ;p

So of course, how can we miss the seafood in SF. We went to this restaurant called Joe's Crab Shack, where I had a WHOLE dungness crab to myself... yummmmmmmmy... and the restaurant was so cute that the crab came with a bib to tie around my neck. :)

Alcatraz

We went to Alcatraz the next day. Here in this picture, you can see "The Rock" in the distance. Here is the bit where I talk about Prison Break.

Must as Prison Break is an excellent drama series, it must have stolen some of its idea from Alcatraz. Of all the attempted escapes (refer to this wiki article) from Alcatraz, Prison Break seems to have adapted the most popular and widely known one. Besides, it's already been featured in the movie "Escape from Alcatraz" and not forgetting "The Shawshank Redemption" (which I say is an excellent movie, one of my favourites). But then again, I must say that it being a prison with relatively basic structures and stuff, there're limited options to how many types of escapes can be planned. :)

California Sea Lions! In case you're thinking this is some sort of Aquarium or sealife park, you're wrong. This is just one of the floating pontoons on Pier 39 at the Fisherman's Wharf. It is documented on Wikipedia as well.

Stanford (Palo Alto) & around

So after spending two days in San Francisco city, we head off to visit Siswi in Stanford, where she will bring up to more places than we could have dreamed of. ;p
This is a picture of the Memorial Church in Stanford. Stanford doesn't really look like a University, with palm trees lining the boulevard (which costs a shitload of moola to maintain in the Californian weather apparently), and the architecture gives the buildings a sort of Mediterranean resort feel.

For some reason, I've been convinced by Siswi to do this hike while on holiday. It was organised by the Stanford Outing Club and was a hike up this mountain which I cannot remember the name of, which will take up to an elevation of 1500ft before we descend on the other side to head to the beach, 6 miles away. And then of course we have to head back to where we started right? So it was twice the elevation and twice the distance. But of course, it was fun lah. :) (and Chea Lu went shopping in the meantime. she wasn't about to have two life-changing experiences on one trip! haha)

The next day, Siswi rented a car and we went on a road trip for the next two days!

Napa Valley

We went to Napa Valley first, which is the wine-producing region in California. The grapes had already been harvested for the year (duh, it's winter), so the vineyard's were empty. But we managed to stumble upon a winery, (William Hill Winery - we were quite lucky cos it said "By appointment only" at the entrance), where they even gave us a quite tour of the factory and we even had a wine tasting session.

Such nice smooth wine going down the throat gave us a sense of euphoria afterwards.

Beautiful maple leaves which had not fallen yet.

We then went on a trip to a Krispy Kreme factory where we also had some freshly fried Krispy Kreme doughnuts ourselves, before heading for dinner at this yummy Indonesian restaurant in Berkeley. I had this dish called Mee Tek Tek (no no, it's NOT mee tetek), which was really yummy. We also had pretty authetic gado gado and tahu telor. Heavenly!

Our guide then took us to the Indian Rock at Berkeley. I have no idea why it's called Indian Rock, but it's just this rock quite out of the blue on top of a hill, which gives an excellent, unobstructed view all the way to San Francisco.

On the second day, we set off IHOP for brunch. IHOP stands for International House of Pancakes, which i think is such a cool name. It's another American institution of course, and Kenny has the "must-try-them-all!" attitude...

Mystery Spot

The highlight of the day was a visit to the "Mystery Spot", so named because the laws of Physics doesn't apply. As a Physicists, i must say i felt quite dumbfounded by some of the phenomenon present. You should probably check out and explore their home page which gives you more information. (and it's true about what they've said on the website, cos we've had demonstrations when we went..) Of course, they're not trying to solve the mystery either, otherwise it won't be a Mystery Spot anymore right? ;p

Here a picture of the "Crooked Shack" or something like that, which unfortunately doesn't do much justice to the actual shack.

A advertising shot for the Mystery Spot. :)

The night was spent shopping at Gilroy Premium Outlets. It's a MASSIVE concentration of factory outlets and sells stuff at ridiculous prices. You can kinda imagine a factory outlet as a department store that is perpertually on sale at 50% off (or more). We only had two hours there before it was closed, so it was a pity. I'm sure even I could spend half a day there.. haha... But then again, it's hard to find things in my size.

So this pretty much concludes my trip to SF. And comparing to the same point on my trips last year, I had not suffered a mishap or misadventure yet... ;p

Labels: San Francisco