So this is my very first spring break....I've been having a lot of firsts doing my time in the States. However I've been having an amazing Spring Break.
So this Spring Break I decided to go up to San Francisco for a few days. I was able to catch a ride up with Justine...Thanks!! I stayed with Joshua in San Jose.
Day One:
The first day, we decided to stay in San Jose and not go into San Francisco since we were both tired from finals week and from the 5 - 6 hour journey up. I managed to sleep a long time...only waking up at 12.30pm. So we decided to take it easy and go to the flea market. It was pretty interesting, it was a typical flea market with lots of cheap things to buy. We walked around for a couple of hours and played in the arcade there. I also had my very first corndog. The taste was pretty interesting, I liked it but maybe I think I'm gonna stick to hot dogs for now. After the flea market, we went home and played fifa '06.
Day Two:
After Church, we took the Caltrain into San Francisco. The Caltrain took a little more than an hour to get into downtown San Francisco. I wasn't able to catch much of the scenery since Josh and I were having an in-depth talk about British History and the Alternative version of British History. This interesting talk caused time to fly-by and we were in San Francisco in no time. We were met by Wendy at the Caltrain Station. I owe a big Thank You to her for showing us around. We were warned that we would be walking alot and we walked a lot as we were taken on a walking tour of San Francisco. We walked from the station to the AT&T park, where the San Francisco Giants played.
After taking some photos, we carried on walking along the embarcadero, going past the even numbered piers and underneath the bay bridge and finally the ferry building, Interesting fact: Even numbered piers are to the south of The Bay Bridge and odd numbered piers are to the North.
The ferry building looked like a typical late 19th century ferry building. Inside, it was turned into a small shopping place with a lot of speciality shops, ranging from mushroom shops to gelato places to salted pork. We decided to try a small patisserie. Wendy and I tried the chocolate and vanilla cream cupcake and Joshua tried the macaroon (pronounced "maroon"). They were a bit heavy for a typical hot californian day but they were delicious nonetheless. Afterwards we walked down market street, just looking at the buildings and the main shopping street. There were some old style buildings and it reminded me a little bit of Manhatten. We turned onto Powell Street where we saw the cable cars, but we didn't go on one since it was too expensive ($5 for a single journey!!!). We then walked across union square and then up the hill and through the tunnel into a completely different world....Chinatown.
Chinatown reminded me of Hong Kong, as it was set on a hill and there were a lot of chinese people. The most chinese people I've seen on one street without a white person in site outside of Asia. We stopped and rested for a while in Chinatown where we had boba tea, egg waffle (้่ไป) and popcorn chicken. The boba tea had a lot of flavour, they had used the really strong HK tea...I Like! The popcorn chicken was awesome as well. The egg waffle wasn't as nice other one's I've tried but it was still decent. I also had some dimsum on the go in Chinatown. After Chinatown, we walked through little Italy and then up the very steep Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower. The view was amazing. I was able to see the downtown area, the bay and golden gate bridge. Afterwards we walked towards fisherman's wharf, where we concluded our walking tour and had clam chowder at the world famous Boudin's.
Day Three:
I stayed in San Jose after a tiring day in San Francisco. We decided to go shopping at Santana Row and Westfields Valley Fair. Santana Fair is like The Grove in LA. It's like a posh outdoor shopping centre/street. We played chess there as well. It was a gruelling game which took about an hour. In the end I manage to prevail, but only just. It was a close game. Afterwards we went to have lunch. We wanted to go to The Cheesecake factory because neither of us have been there but then decided against it because it was too expensive. We then went to watch Avatar 3D as I haven't seen it yet. It was an OK movie but the 3D was pretty good. It was very long. In the evening we went to play mini-golf with Daniel Yeh. It was fun and I was able to put my golfing skills to te practice.
Day Four:
I go into San Francisco for a second day...this time all by myself, to explore the weside of San Francisco. I arrive in downtown San Francisco. Having decided to walk to the tourist info. at Powell & Market, I set off on foot. On my way, I stumble upon a very large building with what seemed like a garden on its roof. I decided to explore this intriguing building.I found out I had stumpled upon Yerba Buena and the Yerba Buena Gardens. With its distinctive views of the city and its relaxing atmosphere, I decided to take a rest. I soon as i set down, I was approached by two people. They started asking me about the Bible and Chrisitanity. I didn't know who they were at first, but I told them that I was a Christian and what I believed in. They then prayed for me, it was an encouraging start to the day. Afterwards I found out they were from UCI Epic and they knew someone who I knew who was from UCI Epic. After this unique encounter, I went on my way. I bought a one day pass so that I can take the public transport. I took the bus to Golden Gate Park. Golden Gate Park is a very large park in SF, its kinda like Central Park in NYC. At the gate, I was set upon by a couple of guys who offered to sell me weed, which I promptly refused and carried on walking. Inside the park, there were many tribes sitting partially hidden by the bushes smoking weed and playing the guitar. However as I got further into the park, there were less and less of these tribes sitting around and became more and more of a touristy place. During my explorations of the park, I got lost in the botanical garden, with its boundaries fenced off, I could not get out. Finally, after 30 mins of searching, I found a way out. Afterwards I took the bus to the final frontier of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge. After exploring the Golden Gate Bridge, I went down to Fort Mason and Ghiradelli Square, where there was a lot of chocolate. Then I took the cable car back to Union Square to do some Shopping.
