After the farmer’s market, we continued walking east towards along the bay. Sarah suggested that we could walk to the AT&T park further down, so we did. But half way through, we decided that there was actually nothing interesting to see so we turned back and took the historic street car to fisherman’s wharf!
If I did not get it wrong, this is the historic street car.
Basically its like a tram that runs on a single route through a few main areas in SFO. The driver was a chinese and was nice to give us a discount when he saw us frantically trying to dig out small notes, 3 dollars off! Speaking about drivers, I noticed that most public transport drivers in SFO are Asians, or more specifically chinese in San Francisco. Which is quite odd for a city in America, probably due to the large chinese community. If I am not wrong, the Chinese American population in San Francisco is almost 20% of its total population. It really feels like part of China walking past Chinatown at any time of the day, where many chinese old folks will be out “shopping” and walking around. It feels really traditional, nothing like the rather dead Chinatown of LA. Interestingly, in the buses/trains, instructions and messages in Chinese comes after the one in English (right underneath it), which shows how strong the Chinese influence is in San Francisco.
So, we reached the fisherman’s wharf shortly.
and the first thing we did was to try the famed clam chowder. There were so many food stands to choose from and we finally decided on one with a relatively long queue.
I was never a fan of clam chowder so I could not really tell if it was nice, but it definitely tasted better than what I had back in UCLA. At least it was not too high in sodium and fresh clams and other ingredients could be seen. The fried calamari and prawns thing was quite tasty too, the secret to it is the batter and its not oily at all!
After lunch, we walked around the fisherman’s wharf area. Many shops selling souvenirs, food etc, those typically “touristy” shops.
Along the way, I also met my monkey brothers. (It’s a display from a shop selling furniture and garden decorative items.. )
There was nothing much around fisherman’s wharf actually, just there to enjoy the pier and sea breeze. And yes, there were many many fat sea gulls walking/ flying around.
After that, we walked to Pier39, another “main attraction” along the bay area where the sea lions are! The sea lions are seriously fat and lazy, and to be honest, they are not exactly cute. 😛 and they like to howl a lot as well, I wonder what they were saying when they make that noise. It will be interesting to be able to understand the sea lions isn’t it?
But I think the sea lions are living evidence of good food+ good weather+ good life + sleep a lot= FAT!
Look at that sea gull (with skinny legs) in the midst of the fat sea lions! 😛
After Pier 39, we still had some time before our Alcatraz tour that night so we walked to Ghirardelli Square nearby which I am sure chocolate fans will be familiar with the chocolate brand Ghirardelli.
They used to make their chocolate right here at the square, but now the production factory is somewhere else. The square is actually quite big, with a few chocolate shops and caffe all selling Ghirardelli chocolates and desserts. We were given free chocolate to sample as we walked into the shop and also ordered two very rich and sinful chocolate sundaes to share. The whole place was very crowded with a super long queue to the caffe.
The one on the left is Midnight Reverie dark chocolate sundae (dark chocolate,chocolate ice cream, milk chocolate fudge and whipped cream); The one on the right is Peanut Butter chocolate sundae (vanilla icecream, peanut butter, milk chocolate, dark chocolate fudge and whip cream).
The desserts are of course, sweet and there is far too much fudge and whipped cream than the ice cream itself. Oh well, Americans in general like their desserts real sweet so it was kind of expected. It was not too bad, ( speaking from someone who will rarely go for desserts containing chocolate) but if I ever come here again, I would rather get just the simple Ghirardelli chocolate ice cream with waffle cone so I can actually taste the ice cream. I liked the dark chocolate squares here a lot though, the nice tinge of bitterness. (85% dark the best!)
Our last destination for the day was to Alcatraz Island.
View of Alcatraz island
sun set with the bay bridge at the back (taken from the ferry on the way to alcatraz)
(we took a night tour) Alcatraz is basically an offshore old prison. During the tour, we were given each an audio headset and we were supposed to listen and walked through the entire place on our own. It was quite a satisfying tour as I found it quite informative. The narrator of the audio was actually the actual former prison guards and ex-prisoners were also asked to give personal recounts of their experiences. The sound effects were also really good.
To give you guys an idea of the size of a prison cell, here you go. 🙂
But otherwise, I was too cold and lazy to take out my camera…
Some reflections: The prison did not feel like a dark and scary place at all. In fact, I thought it was a quite pleasant place to stay in (we were shown a furnished prison cell, looks really cozy)
and the food served looked quite good as well. In terms of basic living conditions, I would say that it was decent, if the prisoners behaved “obediently”, I don’t think it will be bad at all. But I guess what make prison life unbearable would be the mental torture the prisoners had to go through, with the harsh treatment from the prison guards, complete cutoff from the outside world and the constant desire for freedom. The situation is also exacerbated by the fact that prisoners in general have some form of behavorial problem and rebellious in nature, so they might do “wrong” things unintentionally which will get them into trouble. After hearing to some of the stories from our guide, I felt happy for those prisoners who managed to get out of prison and to turn over a new leaf, becoming better persons. It was comforting to know that the prison was more than a dark and scary place I usually associate it with and Alcatraz actually did something good for these people. 🙂
I did not realize we did so much on day 2 until I needed to write about it..ok, end of Day 2., day 3 to come!
The Gold Cloud 