Day 16 | The Amazing San Francisco
No sooner had we tucked in the alarm went off. This morning we had to get to the famous Fishermans Wharf area and get on our bus tour.
Down to reception after getting ready Angus got a coffee and we were on our way in a cab ordered. San Francisco is very much a town lived in with many of the building apartment blocks in the city. It is Saturday morning so we are quickly there.
Having worked out where we the bus comes we had a look around the shops and something to eat. AJ the tour guide, Rowan the driver and eight others boarded this Movie Tour of San Francisco.
AJ the tour guide, Rowan the driver and eight others boarded this Movie Tour of San Francisco. There have been a lot of movies filmed in the area, particularly the steep streets, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge.
The bus had a DVD set up so we saw reminder clips from the movies as we arrived at each location over the next three hours.
A diverse selection included the movies of Dirty Harry, View to a Kill, Mrs Doubtfire among others. Common production processes had lots of characters driving down a SF street to arrive suddenly at a Los Angeles home.
Many shows are presented as being in San Francisco but are filmed in Hollywood weekly with lots of establishing character shots during the series being collected. We also saw the architecture that George Lucas used as the basis of Naboo.
After the tour we got a late lunch at Fisherman's Wharf. The restaurant was busy and pretty tourist driven (well, we were there). It was OK. Walking around the area we checked out a museum of coin-operated amusements, from mechanical to video. Free (except the coins you want) and interesting.
We decided to go over to Union Square. On foot it looks close but because of the hills we opted for the tram car. There was a very long line waiting and it took over half an hour to board our tram. Obviously tensions were high as a French lady about 10 in line swung her leg over the rail ready to dash to the tram when a local at no 2 in the line yelled 'Hey don’t you be doing that – no cue jumping’ the French lady waved her arm as if to say whatever and swung her other leg over and ran for the tram – even patting the local on the arm on the way past. RUDE!
There are ‘new’ 1950s closed cable-car trams and the older brass and timber open trams we wanted to go on. It was a fun way to travel but only took us most of the way, at least we a missed the hill.
Union Square was busy (particularly for a Saturday) but we were drawn into a 5 level shoe store that was having a sale (when aren’t they). At least we both found something we wanted.
We had a tip that the R&G Lounge in Chinatown was good so we walked up there for dinner. It was interesting joining the other folks on the wait-list while a table became free. We waited about 45min so not too bad. It seemed the most popular menu item was the crab as we watched plate after plate leave the kitchen. We ordered a selection of familiar foods which were rather unfamiliar when eaten – we thought it was interesting how it was very different taste to what we were used to.
From here we hailed our first cab. Angus did some research on doing this and waved and did the ‘statue of liberty’ pose and a cab stopped in the middle of the road. With both of us worried about jay-walking made running out into the road a bit awkward. Anyway, back to the room, it’s been a long day!