Entering the Bay Area

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After a night with a very loud air conditioning system, we got up and prepared for the trip to the best anticipated city of our trip: San Francisco.
Getting out of the Yosemite region is about as hard as getting into it, long and windy roads lead you eventually to an Interstate leading to SF.

Entering the Bay Area is probably one of the most impressing things we’ve done so far. After driving through the upper Bay Area with cities like Daly City with approximately 400.000 inhabitants and bigger, you arrive at a two bridge system called Bay Bridge. This is the Eastern entrance to San Francisco and almost as famous as the Golden Gate Bridge.

First thing we did in San Francisco wad to find a route called 49 Mile Scenic Drive. This road will lead you to most of the car accessible sites the city has to offer. As we couldn’t find the start of the tour, we started touring ourselves and found our way to the Golden Gate bridge. We first drove it Southbound and went to the tourist designated site there, especially made for all photographing tourists. The view from over there is great, but it is at about the same level ad the deck of the bridge itself. We heard from another tourist that driving to the other side of the highway and going up the hill would yield a better view.

So we went up there and got excellent views of the bridge and the city from across the bay. Wonderful. Albeit a bit windy. And cold.
With us getting comfy with temperatures high in the 30’s, the mere 21 in San Francisco was quite a switch. Stewed in shirts, shirts and jackets we stood there to take pictures while our pants were nearly blown off by the syringe gusts of wind up there.

Going back Northbound we had to pay toll; 6 dollars. Going over the Bay Bridge was cheaper at 4 dollars, but the Golden Gate is quite a bit bigger. After returning to the city, we drove to the hotel to find that the Hilton Financial District is located directly next to Chinatown. Hoe great is that!

Also, we had a grim reminder that the hotel was dead in the middle of the city: parking was a whopping 45 dollars per night. With 2 nights to spend, we have been parking cheaper…
After checking in at the very luxureus hotel, we made our way into the town to start sightseeing. We did Union Square and a whole lot of walking up and down steep hills, which is good fun as long as you’re going downhill. The other way around is really not ok!

To find dinner, we started searching for non dinghy looking places in Chinatown. Luckily, this was daily easy and we settled for some teriyaki at a restaurant called Floating Boats Sushi Restaurant. As you might suspect judging by the name, it features a carousel of chain linked boats (floating in real water!) with sushi dishes on the boats for the guests to pick and eat. It was really funny to look at. The food was great, and pretty cheap, so the day ended great.