Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Touring around San Francisco City

8.00am 16th July Sat 8am (San Francisco Time)
Beginning to feel really tired out and lazed in bed a little longer today.

9.30am
Lisa left for work early in the morning and Ian prepared breakfast for me today. We had toast and ...
cottage cheese with honey strewn on it! Heh, it's the first time i ate cottage cheese. Interesting!


10am
Worked on my assignment while Ian worked from the "office area" upstairs. I'm glad I managed to churn out some 2500 words.

11.15am
Ian drove me to BART. And I took the public transport down to SF to meet Lisa for lunch. Here's a view of the Millibrae Station.

Here's an overview of the area from the station. It's super cold.... about 18 degrees... with the wind blowing quite strongly..


The buying process of the train ticket is very much like Singapore, the main difference i guess is that you could buy with credit card even for a $3 journey.




A one way ticket from Millibrae to Montgomery is USD3.80. Here's the front and the back of the train ticket, very much like the flimsy ones Singapore used to have.



Train gates all looks the same like Singapore's.




Entering the train station, i looked forward to seeing the train. It disappointed me though.. it was a boring looking old train.. much different from Singapore's MRT trains. Stepping out of the train station and going up into the city, I felt the cold wind blowing while I looked around the many tall big buildings, so close together. For the first time I’m seeing the city of San Francisco. Somehow, the office buildings in Singapore aren’t so close and aren’t so big. Wooh!

12.45pm
Met Lisa for lunch. We had typical sandwiches. It was turkey and cheese for me. And it was nice. =) Before reached the café for lunch, we popped by a hotel for the map. During lunch, Lisa drew out the boundaries on the map where I could go: Union Square, Little Italy, Chinatown.


Here's what I had for lunch from Cafe Madeline: Turkey and Ham Sandwich! 2.00pm
So here, off I went on my own. I decided to walk up to Little Italy, then back down to Chinatown and Union Square before meeting Lisa at 6pm.

The first building that I saw at the fringe of the city centre is The Church of Scientology. Guess what? I took a photo of it and the next thing I know is that I’m invited to go in. I joked and asked if Tom Cruise is in as I entered the building. I read their ideas and concepts, asked a few questions ..which they say are good questions (apparently so when they can't answer my questions). Before I left, there was a survey form.. you know, good old survey forms..


Question: Is there anything you desire to have or change in your life?


How I wish I had the courage to respond “That everyone will come to know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour." But God forgive me, I had no courage being alone in a foreign land and rather "undesirable" place. So I put down a typical human answer "To have more time to do more things that I want. Of course, as usual, they wanted to direct me to someone who could help "address the issues in my life". No thanks, and I left. =p



Walking further, I got distracted and decided to walk out of the boundary that Lisa drawn for me. I walked towards a pier.

The view from Pier 5.

Back trekking, I reached Little Italy. I didn't find it spectacular. Just that it is full of Italian restaurants like this. Popped into the National Shrine of St Francis of Assisi.

There were people going in and out of the church, both for sightseeing and for a little word of prayer.

Mom wanted me to get chocolates for her, so I entered into a candy shop.


Wow. The candy shop is soooo big! This is but a tenth of the area! There were so much choices that i have absolutely no idea what to get.. so i din get any =p.

Reached Washington Square, a small park in the city where people lazed around.


There was a statue there, and no, you didn't guess it right. It wasn't Washington's statue at Washington Square. It's Benjamin Franklin. Don't ask me why =P

Behind the park is Church of St Paul and St Peter. Buildings here are just so big that it's impossible to catch the magnificient building of them all.


The view of Coit Tower from afar.



Entering Chinatown





Who says there's no durians in US?


Somehow I lost my map. Well, guess I’m the super calm type. I simply walked into another hotel (I recognized Le Meridien) and asked for another map.

Guess what I saw?


A chinese version of the statue of liberty. They call it the Goddess of Democracy.

5.20pm

There isn't a lot of time left for me to go to Union Square, so I decided to just stay around the city and


6.10pm
Met Lisa and she brought me to a dinner gathering with her ex schoolmates. I muse at the thought that the social gatherings that I’ve been to with Ian and Lisa has always been amongst the midst of Lawyers. Thankfully I didn't feel too left out in the conversations =)
8pm
Followed Lisa to pick up her parents who stay in San Francisco. The place was soooo foggy we could hardly see the road. Her parents are going to San Diego on vacation, staying with Lisa’s sister. They are able to speak chinese. Though around 60-70 years old, they are a strong healthy couple =) I'm glad to be able to meet up with them, even though only for a short while.

9.30pm
Finally on the way home after such a long day!

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