day 19 - fresno, ca to san francisco, ca

For most of our day in San Francisco, we were lost or stuck in traffic. It kind of took the shine off of what was otherwise a great city. To be frank however, the streets of downtown San Francisco are probably the most un-car-friendly streets I've ever been in - worse than New York. They are first of all, ridiculously hilly. Secondly, there are these trolleys taking up all this space on the street and going incredibly slowly. Finally, there's something about the lights...they only seemed to stay green for about 10 seconds at a time.



But anyway, San Francisco is a fun city with a very New York kind of feel in the downtown area. We first stopped in Chinatown, of course, because we were (again) craving Asian food.



Then we tried to look for the Golden Gate bridge. After numerous failed turns and a lot of confusion, we ended up going through Golden Gate Park, which ends in a cute beach.


We drove for another 20 minutes before finally finding it:


Here's a segment of bridge and some facts:

By then, unbelievably, it was already 5pm. (To be fair, we did take a nap earlier in the day too.) So we headed to Pier 39, a nice, Santa Monica-esque market area on the wharf.




From the end, you can see Alcatraz, the famous prison, as well as lots of sea lions (but we didn't see them that day).

Then we had an amazing seafood meal at Pier Market.

Steamed clams

Grilled scallop and shrimp skewer

Grilled teriyaki salmon

We will undoubtedly be back to San Francisco - just not with a car next time.