Monday 9 January 1984 – San
Francisco #2
I was awake
early again at about 05.30 worrying away about all that might be going wrong at
home and about our return trip. Ridiculous stuff, most of it. Rab stirred at
about 06.30 and of course it didn’t take long for Matt to wake up after that.
The weather was still foggy and the predicted temperature was 52°F (about 11°C
by my calculation). So we had to break out our anoraks – or aardvarks as Becky
refers to them.
As forecast,
the fog stayed down pretty low and in view of the cold conditions we felt there
was no point in driving around sightseeing. We finally got out of the room at
about 09.15 and decided to have breakfast downstairs despite the cost. It was
very good, but pricey at $30 including the tip. Rab had decided that she wanted
to go downtown and that we should catch a bus. (I hate public transport and indeed even now we very rarely use it, but
Rab has a thing about using it when we travel, as part of the overall
experience.) so we did that, standing around in the chilly morning for
quite some time before one turned up.
Chinatown
was where she wanted to start so we went there. I felt it was a bit
disappointing, rather like Grey
Street in Durban
(this was an area where shops with Indian
proprietors were clustered) except that the shopkeepers had different
features and the goods were marginally more Eastern. Mainly bazaars and
jewellery shops and although we went into many of the latter, Rab kept saying
she had no intention of buying anything since she was certain it would be
cheaper in Hong Kong (the planned
destination of our trip at the year’s end). From my point of view this
seemed to render the entire exercise as pointless.
Anyway, we
traipsed around for a couple of hours and then worked our way down to Union Square where
all the better department stores are - and all the beggars. We were stopped
several times by folks on the bum and on one corner a band of buskers was
playing – washboard, bass and banjo. Rab had decided that the jeans that we
didn’t buy in San Diego
were a good buy after all and so we spent the next hour or so trying,
unsuccessfully, to find some. If time had permitted we may well have gone back
to San Diego!!
 |
| Our "tram". Note the antique cigarette ad in the background! |
We finally
decided to head back to Pier 39 with its 135 shops many of which offered
discounts to us as Sheraton guests and so we caught one of the ‘motorised
trams’. The trams, or trolley cars, for which SF is famous are all out of
service right now so some bright lad got the idea of mounting a tram body on a
truck chassis and now charges 50% more than the bus fare running between Union
Square and Fisherman’s Wharf. Very enterprising of him.
 |
| Pier 39 |
He dropped
us off right at the pier and we spent the afternoon wandering around rthe shops
– not that there was much of the afternoon left as we only got there at
threeish. Rab bought some shell serviette rings and Matt got another NFL
T-shirt to go with his Dallas Cowboys one. The caramel apples we bought to gnaw
on as we walked were delicious. My back was giving a lot of trouble today and
Rab wanted to get her boots on as she was feeling cold, so we headed back to
the hotel.
 |
| Matt and me down at the pier. Great hair! |
We dropped
our purchases off there and picked up the car to start the hunt for the T-shirt
Rab was determined to find – one of San Francisco with a bit of glitter. She
turned down one which showed the Bridge with flashing red lights – a bargain at
$40 I thought and settled for a more sedate one which met her specifications.
On we went to
a restaurant called Victoria Station at Rob’s suggestion to have some beef for
a change. (Because fish was so scarce in Zimbabwe, we
tended to eat a good deal when we travelled, but every now and then felt like a
good steak.) we could not recognise any of the cuts on offer as they all
have names that differ from what we are used to. We ordered what was termed prime
rib expecting to get a grilled steak but got instead a large slab of very pink
meat. It was very tasty but not what we had expected.
Our final
call of the day was at the front to visit Ripley’s Believe It Or Not before
coming back to the hotel. Most of the stuff was junk but there were some
amazing miniature items including grains of rice with the Lord’s Prayer on them
etc etc.
And so to
bed
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