travel
San Francisco Day 2!
Another great day came and went in the beautiful city of San Francisco! After I wrote yesterday I fell right to sleep and had a solid night sleep. While sleeping in would've been very nice and welcomed, we woke up early again and got ready for Alcatraz. Once we were all ready around 7 a.m we headed over to pier 33, where we were being picked up from, and printed out our tickets for the tour. We walked around a little bit but then at 8:45 am our ferry had arrived to pick everyone up.
Alcatraz prison is only a couple miles away from San Francisco so the ride over the bay was not very long. When we got there one of the tour guide was telling us guidelines, rules and other information that we needed to know, and along with this he told us that one of the old inmates was here selling his book, waiting for all of us at the end of the tour. That, of course, really spiked everyones attention. We began our tour, after walking up a very long and steep hill, around the prison. The tour was really exciting, there was so much to learn and for once the history was actually interesting. Alcatraz was really cool, but it was eerie even during the day I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be a prison warden at night. While Alcatraz was known to be a big bad island with a bunch of highly dangerous criminals there was a beautiful view of the city! At the end of the tour there was a longggg line to meet the old inmate. His name is William Baker, he is 80 years old and has just recently gotten on parol. He successfully robbed a few banks, before getting caught, and was put in Alcatraz because he escaped other prisons he was put in. We didn't have time to meet him and ask questions so we headed back to wait for the ferry. We made it just in time.
Once we got back to Pier 33 we took a cab to China town and ate and this really good restaurant named, Hah Kah. It was known for Din Sum and we had 5 different dishes with different meats. They were all amazing, but it took us 30 minutes to be seated, even though there were many tables ready but just needed to be cleaned, and the food took over an hour to get to the table. It was hard to dislike them because the food was so good and the people were so nice, but the manager really needs to help the TWO waitresses out and give them a busboy. So we were a little annoyed because it took 2.5 hours out of our day, but Allen reminded me that at least we are in San Francisco, so after he said that I wasn't really annoyed anymore.
We headed back to fisherman's wharf, to look at the sea lions and sight see a little bit. According to my parents when they first went to San Francisco all the little docks were covered in Sea lions! That was not exactly the case but there were still soo many Sea Lions. They humor me, the remind me a little of my dog Duncan because all they do is sleep and when they wake up they want to play around with each other and push everyone off the dock. So it was fun to watch for a little. Once we were done looking we went back to the car and headed to Muir Woods.
A few years ago, when we went to muir woods for the first time, I was defiant and didn't wear tennis shoes. I hate myself for doing this, but I wanted to look cute all day so I wore sandals...The trail is not at all made for open toed shoes, they are barely made for regular shoes. So I was really excited to go back and actually get to walk the trails. When we got there the rush from the crowds was just about over, so we got a parking spot close up!
Muir Woods, if you have never seen it, is amazing. I really don't think the word amazing can sum it up well enough but yeah. It was already pretty before we hit the trails, but once we got into the deep woods it somehow got even better. We started off on the Canopy Trail, which is really steep and about 2 hours long, but we didn't mind and were ready.
Around 7:30 pm is when we finally made it back to the car, just in time to get out of there before it was pitch black. I was a little nervous because the road that led us back to the highway is very skinny and right on a cliff, one wrong move and we could have been toast, but obviously we came out alright. Now we are getting ready for bed so we will be well rested for another great day in San Francisco!
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