Monday, March 29, 2010

A Visit to San Francisco (Day 2)

Did I mention that we stayed at the Wharf Inn in San Francisco? lol Yeah, I know I mentioned it in the other post. The photos for this post are from the second day and I figured I'm mention how comfy the rooms were at this motel. Even my trucker friend liked his room and he's a picky kind of guy. We went back over to Fisherman's Wharf to have breakfast at the Boudin Bakery as well as to buy some yummy sourdough bread to take home with us. Breakfast was fast and yummy. Even the coffee was good! After buying a few assorted loaves of sourdough bread, we headed back over to the motel to check out.

Next stop; Golden Gate Park. This time, though we didn't completely rely on the GPS for our directions to the part of the park we wanted to visit. I spent a little time on Google maps and wrote down some general directions so we'd be able to tell if the GPS decided to go nutty again. We went up some of the steepest hills in San Francisco and cruised past Lombard Street just for "effect". I mean, if you're taking a visitor from another country around San Francisco, you have to do that, right? lol

My trucker friend really wanted to visit the Japanese Tea Gardens and to sit down for a "traditional Japanese tea". So we headed straight (Or sort of straight) for the area of the park where the Tea Gardens are. We ended up parking in the underground parking that's under the California Academy of Sciences and then walking across the Music Concourse near the Spreckels Temple of Music.

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We walked around behind the building to find the restrooms and came across a couple of San Francisco's "finest". The three of us told the two cops that they had the best jobs in town and both of them agreed. The lady cop told us that she'd been trying to get the mounted assignment for years and she'd just gotten the "promotion" to mounted a few months before. She said that there are no rookie cops riding horseback. She was on the list for almost 27 years. The fellow agreed with her. And with us, about their jobs being the best in the city.

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The entrance gate to the Tea Gardens:

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And here are a few photos of some of the beautiful sights you see when you wander around in the gardens.

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I even climbed the drum bridge! It's a lot bigger than it looks in the pictures! lol

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And I asked for permission to post a photo of my trucker friend and his fiance... The actual tea house is in the back ground behind him and the gift shop is above her shoulder behind the glorious azaleas.

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Speaking of the azaleas, how's this for color:

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After we left the Tea Gardens, we drove the length of the park over to the coast. We stopped at a lovely restaurant called the Beach Chalet, right across the Great Highway from the beach. We had a window table with a beautiful view and we had a very delicious lunch. After lunch, we headed for the Golden Gate Bridge and drove across to the vista point on the North side of the bridge. Of course we had to stop and enjoy the view.

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A little bit of color on the hillside below the vista point;

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And that's the trip to San Francisco. I hope you've enjoyed the pictures!

2 comments:

shari said...

WOW, your pictures are beautiful. Your trucker friend looks a little like Robert Blake (Uh oh haha)I may have to steal a couple more from ya. San Fran looks pretty. I was born in San Raphael but do not remember it. Moved quickly to frozen Indiana. Glad you are back on the blog...

katfish said...

Lovely and peaceful, definitely enjoyed your pictures thanks!