Janet & Ali's Big Adventure April 2008 Day 4 - off to vancouver -

We had to get up early to catch the scarily driven shuttle bus to the airport. An uneventful flight - it went quickly - we had a healthy inflight breakfast of Cadbury Dairy Milk (you had to buy food, so it was chips, chocolate or a beef sandwich).


We arrived in Vancouver to a grey rainy day. We got directions at the airport and caught 2 busses downtown to our hotel - The Comfort Inn. We had to walk a few blocks in the rain. (We love this hotel, it has alovely shower!). We left our bags at the fron desk and wandered around for about 4 hours till our room was ready - we found an underground shopping mall, which kept us out of the rain for a while. We also discovered that every second store seemed to be selling pizza by the slice. So this was lunch. $1.43 a slice. And DELICIOUS!


When our room was ready we went to it and had a warm dry rest. We headed off to the foodcourt in the underground mall for some chinese food for dinner. I am impressed witrh the number of vegetarian options at all the food places - I have a fantastic range of choices!!.

Janet & Ali's Big Adventure April 2008 Day 3 - a good day for a stroll up a hill -

Yes, we've got the busses sorted. We caught the Bus to Lombard St to check out the Crookedest St in the world. We would like to add steepest street in the world to that title. To get to the crooked part, you have to walk up the steepest part of street you can imagine. Wow.

After that, we walked down to the water and headed towards the Golden Gate Bridge, which we admired from a distance before heading back to Fisherman's Warf.

We basically spent the rest of the day walking around here...very touristy...we bought a few bargains (and more mini donuts (donut count #3) and were harassed to eat in various restaurants, we opted for Burger King however.(vegie burger yum!)

We were booked on the 5.25pm "night" tour of Alcatraz, so we hopped on the boat, which goes around the island, then did the walking tour, which is really cool - guards and prisoners take you on a tour through your headphones.

After this, we decided that rather than freeze to death, we'd get the first boat back and hopefully see the sunset behind the bridge, which we did, although freezing was still an option and almost occured. Farout it was cold.

We went in search of dinner and ended up back at Burger King, since it was WARM and we could find it quickly!. Then onto the 49 bus and back to the hotel. Off to the Airport at 5.15am tomorrow and heading for Vancouver!!!

Janet & Ali's Big Adventure - April 2008 - Day 2 - where's that bus???

I think we have conquered the public transport system here.....as long as we don't have to catch bus#2, 3 or 4, because we can't seem to find that one. We ended up on the 37 thanks to the nice policeman. And the 37 took us right where we wanted to be. We started off downtown & checked out some shops like Old Navy (where we could have bought up big, but didn't), GAP and a giant Virgin Mega Store. All the escalators seem to go up about 3 times the distance we are used to, LOTS of room between floors.

After a long wander around in some stores we caught the F-line down to the Cazstro and wandered around there. (oooh first we had a donut (donut count #1) from a shop on the way.

We explored the Castro ands took lots of photos of the rainbow flags. We went in search of a toilet and found a self cleaning talking loo, which was bizzarre and scary.

Lunch was Subway. Subway stores smell exactle the same. yum. Then it was back on the F-line to FIsherman's Warf and Pier 39 where we picked up some souveniers (2 T-shorts for $15) and photographed the seals. And ate some fresh cooked mini donuts (donut count#2) Far out they were good.

We then had to get back on the F-line before our transfers ran out ($1.50 buys you 90 minutes in any direction). We had to get to the BART so we could catch it over to Easy Bay to visit Monti. She picked us up at El Cerito Plaxa and we went back to her place for a home cooked meal. Delicious! It was great to catch up with Monti again and to meet her partner & the kids. Then it was back to the BART into Civic, then 2 blocks west to Van Ness to catch the 49 bus back to Sutter St, just like the first day, only easier because we had no luggage. Now its almost 11pm...we've done well, but definitely time for sleep!

Janet & Ali's Big Adventure - April 2008 - Day 1 - the longest day.

Ok so we stayed awake for over 24 hours. And this was the day AFTER the Celine concert, so we had only 3 hours of snooze the night before. This explains why I am all showered and snuggly in bed at 6pm.

We arrived in San Francisco at about 11 am (half an hour befor we left Brisbane). We braved the Hotel's public transport instructions and caiught the BART (train) from the airport to downtown. From here we had to work out wich way was west and walk a few blocks to the bus. (fortunately for us directionally challenged, the roads all had south, west etc. signs). So we caught the correct bus and then hiked up one of the many hills around here to our hotel (wouldn't have been so bad without luggage!).

They let us check in early, so we popped our bags inthe room and headed out to explore a little and to find some food.

We walked through Japan Town with its lovely cherry blossums snowing down around us. Then we saw a Denny's restaurant so in we went. once inside we realised we would have to work out how to tip on our own. Our meals were served with the best chips we ever tasted. Yummmmm. (So much for eating healthily!!)