Sun come up over Santa Monica Blvd

We had slept the night with the blinds open and so it was nice to wake up to the sun coming up over Santa Monica Blvd, literally. Sheryl Crow would have been so pleased. It looked like it was going to be a nice sunny warm day so I busted out a dress for the first time on the trip. We headed off for some breakfast at a nearby French cafe. We had been getting a bit tired of the massive servings of food as well as the free bread etc that everywhere gives you, so we gave a defeated sigh when they brought out a complimentary basket of croissants, muffins and cookies before we even ordered. That prompted me to order the fruit plate, but Ryan stayed strong and went for the eggs benedict (served on a croissant with a side of butter-fried potatoes for extra fattiness).

Luckily for our girths we had  a long walk ahead of us after that, and we strolled down Melrose Ave which is a long strip of businesses and shops. The first stretch was mainly fancy design stores where the housewives of Beverly Hills no doubt deck out their mansions. Then there was a stretch of designer clothes shops, then we came across old trusty Urban Outfitters where Ryan and I made some purchases. I had wanted some sneakers too so when we passed a sneaker shop we popped in. They were all the same type shoe (a light-weight Brazilian shoe made for martial arts) and the store was empty so the Russian sales woman was quick to pounce on us. I picked up a shoe and couldn't see a price so expected the worst, but when I asked the price she said they were $38.50 a pair! Crazy cheap! So both Ryan and I bought a pair!

By this time our legs were weary from the long walk down Melrose so we stopped into the Village Idiot for a breather, a cooling beverage and read the paper. I perused the real estate section and learned that LA has some really good value real estate (much better than Sydney) but also a lot that are in a whole other league (eg. $60 million dollar mansions, and houses that rent for $70,000 per month). Then we went to a sleek Italian wine bar for lunch, not that we really needed to eat, and had some yummy pizza and arancini. Meanwhile, we had been puzzled by the whole tipping system while we were here, initially thinking 10-15% was the norm but then finding out it was in fact more like 15-20%. Anyway, while we waited for the bus back home along Melrose it was comforting yet confusing that a young American chick came up to us randomly and asked us what the normal tipping rate was! Ryan answered back immediately 15% with his normal confidence but I quickly mentioned that we were Aussies and what did we know really... Then she went to an ATM and withdrew some cash, so make what you will of that scenario.

Back at the hotel Ryan had a quick swim in the rooftop pool while I prettied myself up, then we hit the town again. This time we got a bus along Sunset Blvd all the way up to tourist central - Hollywood Blvd, where the Walk of Fame and the Chinese theatre with actor footprints etc are. I had been here twice before, and it seems to get progressively more crowded, seedy and touristy, so all was good when Ryan didn't wanna stick around too long. Having said that, of all the crazy dressed up characters on the street, there was one Tom Cruise impersonator a la Jerry Maguire in sunglasses and laughing crazy like he does. If I have one regret from this trip it is not giving that guy 2 bucks to have my picture with him coz he was gold.

Alas, regrets aside, I had booked us one last fancy dinner. Japanese, for a change. This place was conveniently behind Avenue of the stars, but inconveniently up a steep incline. Because we were so close it seemed silly to get a cab, so we walked up. So while the limos and 4wds drove passed us, we earned our dinner, but had a lovely outlook when we for up there! Yamashiro was the name and it had a nice view over Hollywood and the rest of LA (well what you can see in the smog). We first went to the Lounge and I had 2 amazing cocktails (a pineapple martini being the highlight) and we shared some equally amazing oysters while gazing over LA. It was crazy to see the skyscrapers of downtown LA, but only just the tops of them above the smog level, because below that they were completely invisible. Then we moved into the restaurant area, where we were escorted to our table, which although was in a cozy booth, wasn't near any windows, so lucky we had gone to the Lounge area first! Dinner was pretty good - we had some sashimi with truffle oil which was YUM!, some tempura and 2 sushi rolls, one a mango and coconut roll which I just HAD to try (although was kind of strange) and a Darth Vader roll which was made with black "forbidden" rice and covered in caviar which Ryan loved. After dinner my tummy was at capacity, yet again, so we got a cab home for our last night in LA. So although I had ensured that we dined at fine establishments, we didn't manage to spot any celebrities. Not even a single Kardashian.

At the drive in

We picked up the keys to the car from the hotel valet and took our last drive. We pulled into a diner up the road called Mels drive in for breakfast. I had egg, cheese and pastrami breakfast sliders, which besides the heart attack was pretty good.

We then drove up to the hills district to take the scenic drive along Mulholand drive. It had some pretty good views and some serious drop offs at the vista points.

After cruising around the windy streets, we dropped the car off out near the airport. It was all very efficient, with us just rolling up to this driveway, a guy walks around the car to check we havent dinged it then hands us a receipt. Was a production line.

A guy there called us a cab and we took it to Venice beach, although it wasn't the best day to be at the beach, I liked it there. Its a bit away from the hollywood side of things and there's always something going on. We checked out the skateboard park then went and got some lunch at the first place we could get a seat.

After lunch and a couple of vinos we walked down to the next beach along the bikepath/walkway to Santa Monica. There were lots of apartments there so I guess people there really do live beside the ocean and leave the fire behind. As far as swimming out past the breakers, the water temp here is freaking freezing, I guess that's why they want to watch the world die.

We walked out onto the pier, but nothing much was going on besides the usual carney crap so we went and had a beer at Big Dean's cafe.

Missed the bus so we caught a cab back, we had this crazy Iranian cabbie who is apparently going to appear in a movie coming up called Argo as an extra, I think as an Iranian cop, but who knows.

We went down to Santa Monica Blvd for dinner, which we discovered was the gay strip of west hollywood. I thought it would be hilarious to order the coq au vin while there and have to say it was pretty delicious.

All the way to LA

After such a gloriously sunny day the one before, we woke up on Thursday morning and put on summer outfits ready to hit the hotel breakfast. Upon opening the door though, it was about 10 degrees cooler than our hotel room and the fog had rolled back in. D'oh!! So we went to breakfast where there was a machine where you could make your own waffles which Ryan mastered with ease. After a quick brekky and then changing back into warmer clothes, we checked out and hit the road. Destination, L.A.!

The weather on the first part of the drive was very patchy - thick fog one minute then sunny blue skies the next. This part of the drive was more inland so instead of ocean views there were rolling hills and mountains and endless fields farming all kinds of things. We could see huge amounts of crops of capsicums (or peppers as they would say) with thousands of red, orange and yellow peppers that had just fallen off the crops, ready for the bunch of people out there with baskets to collect them all. Now that's a lot of salsa verde!

 

We stopped into Santa Barbara, a large seaside town which had a lot of spanish architecture (which I love) and even more palm trees (which I also love). But it was cool and overcast and so our walk along the pier was not entirely pleasant, so after a brief visit to Santa Barbara, we pushed onto Malibu where we hoped the weather would be slightly better. So another hour or so on the road and the fog did subside, but Malibu, which is a huge stretch along the coast with lots of mansions perched on the hill, was still a bit overcast. We stopped into Duke's for lunch, a Hawaiian-style grill place and I had some pretty yummy fish tacos while Ryan had some fish and chips. 

Cloudy and cool in Santa Barbara

Pretty much as soon as we left Malibu, the sun came out, and it was all blue skies (with a touch of smog) for the rest of the day! It wasn't far until LA and thanks to the trusty iPhone we safely navigated our way along the freeways and boulevards of LA, past Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, to our hotel in West Hollywood, Le Montrose Suites. And a pretty cool hotel it was! The room was huge and looked over the palm trees of West Hollywood, and there was a rooftop pool area with a view over most of LA. So after settling into the room and chilling out for a bit, we got dressed up for a night on the town and walked up to nearby Sunset Boulevard. Famous clubs such as the Viper Room and Whiskey A-Go Go were within 5 minutes walking distance from our hotel. Up the road we stopped into Shiro Kuro (meaning Black and White), a cool-looking Japanese tapas bar that was, not surprisingly, all black and white. We had a drink and some tofu in meat sauce as well (not quite a vegetarian dish then I guess). Heading further up Sunset Boulevard we were early for our dinner that I'd booked at trendy Katana, so we stopped in for another drink at the nearest bar we could see which was over the road at House of Blues. We needed wristbands to get in, and the drinks were about double the price of everywhere else we'd been, so we weren't really quite sure what the deal was with that place (although 2 nights later we saw a queue to get in there that wound around the block, so I think it must be a pretty popular live music venue).

Leaving the clouds of Malibu to LA with Santa Monica in the distance

View from our hotel room

So it was finally time for dinner at Katana, an uber trendy supposed Hollywood hotspot which I found online (and which I also just read is where Brad Pitt threw some big party for Jennifer Aniston which must have been nearly a million years ago). Anyway, after passing two separate bouncers/maitre'd  types who asked for our names (even though they didn't have a list) and then nodded us in (what - they had memorised the night's guest list?!), we were in! The restaurant looked pretty nice - set up in a big grand-looking sandstone building with lots of sleek decor. The place was buzzing and we were seated out on a patio by staff which were surprisingly not snobby at all (they can't afford to be when they live off tips I guess). So we got comfortable and ordered a sake tasting flight (3 samples of different sake types) and a bunch of small plates to share including a sashimi tasting plate, salmon carpaccio with truffle oil and a bunch of skewer things which are the specialty of this "robata grill", like shitake stuffed with minced chicken, chicken cartilage (Ryan's choice) and jumbo shrimp wrapped in bacon with chilli garlic sauce. It was all pretty tasty, but to be honest Toko and Tokonoma in Sydney are just as good if not better (although the costs are about the same with the current Aussie dollar). So after Katana it was pretty late so we strolled back down Sunset Blvd to our hotel and slumped into bed after a long day!

Pismo beach far away in time.

The night before we got to bed early for we rose at daybreak to try and catch the sea otters. We ended up seeing some wabbits and squirrels. Which was pretty good. The bunnies were very cute.

Apparently the locals get so drunk they pick up anything

 

 

On the way back to our hotel we asked this other couple if they had seen any otters and they said no but had seen some seals which we completely missed. They pointed out the seals to us and because heidi and i are blind we didn't see some seals out on this rock about 300m away.

We left Cambria, the scarecrows and the antisocial sea otters for Morrow bay. Arriving at morrow bay we heard sea lions barking. They were all hanging out on a pontoon. We thought we'd get out of the wind and have a coffee so we found a cafe. Heidi asked for a machiatto and was told that "this isn't starbucks". So we both opted for cappuccinos which if we tipped out the coffee we could have used the cups as bicycle helmets.

Apparently Chrisy has a house in Morrow Bay

After drinking about half of the drip coffee with foam on top we departed for San Luis Opisbo (SLO). It was a nice place with an old mission building that dated back to 1775. The style of architecture that's Mexican.

We got some Japanese for lunch, it was an obscene amount of food again. Then we walked around the town a bit before having a cleansing ale at a bar which was "creekside". I was expecting a lot more mosquitos but it was really pleasant.

We then set off for Pismo beach and checked into Cottage Inn by the sea. The fog had cleared and it was a sensational day on the beach. We took a walk down to the beach. Pismo was apparently famous for its clams but between humans over fishing and the sea otters smashing them open on their tummies they're all gone now.

We had dinner at ventana grill which was a really nice spot perched on the side of the cliff with the sun setting into the Pacific ocean. We had a glass of bubbley out on the balcony and then shared steamed clams. For mains we had tuna steak and tequila lime chicken. Dessert was awesome we had a strawberry cheesecake wrapped in this cinnamon flour tortilla.

Wild life

I woke up early this morning hoping that the fog had decided to move on from Carmel, but alas it had decided to make itself at home for the foreseeable next few hours, and so we named it Carmel-by-the-Fog instead. It was still beautiful - like a cute European ski resort town, especially in the fog. We got up and ate our breakfast - provided by the hotel in an esky at our door - then checked out after meeting the American couple in the 4WD parked next to us who loved our accents. The guy normally lived in the middle of whoop whoop in Alaska designing missiles. Something different...

So with Carmel behind us, we drove on to Point Lobos State Park, a park which kept putting the song La Bamba in my head, but Los Lobos were nowhere to be found here. Instead, we found a heap of sea lions! We parked our car and went for a walk along the spectacular rocky coastline along to a heap of rocks where we could hear the sea lions - lucky we took photos because I had left my glasses in the car and Ryan's eyes are as bad as mine so we assumed the sea lions we could hear were on the other side of the rocks, but on closer inspection of our photos they had in fact been right in front of us! So we walked around the State Park for a while - it was still so foggy and pretty chilly, so at times it looked and felt more like the coast of Ireland than California. Lucky Ryan utilised his Bear Gryll skills and managed to track down some water in what was a forbidding environment.

We then headed off to Big Sur, a stunning stretch on the central California coast where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. I had booked us in for lunch at a place I found online, called Post Ranch Inn, which had stunning vistas. I had been looking to this for ages, because although the hotel rates were exorbitant, the meal rates were pretty reasonable with the exchange rates. Unfortunately the fog was even thicker in Big Sur than in Carmel! So the view was not quite what we had hoped for, but the meal was great anyway, plus we had some dude park our convertible for us about 7 metres from where we pulled up. Such a silly system, but hey that's how the rich yanks roll.

We then headed onwards, along a magnificent coastline which was still beautiful in the fog! The sun managed to poke its head at out times so we popped the top down for a wee while. What a stunning piece of road though - if ever you are in the area, do this drive! Just north of Cambria where we were staying the night, we came across a crowd a heap of elephant seals! Ginormous lazy old things - most were huddled together for some reason, because the volunteer guide there told us they were trying to cool off! There were so many I doubt I will ever see more elephant seals in one area again.

Eventually we ended up in Cambria, a small seaside town smack bang in between San Fran and LA. We checked into the Sea Otter Inn where only a road separated us from the water, and went in search of sea otters. No luck on that front, but we did see heaps of bird and wild rabbits and squirrels! So we walked the length of the boardwalk, which was a bit longer than I'd expected, mainly because it was about 10 degrees colder than I expected, and found the "main drag". Along the way we had noticed that every hotel had some weird character dressed up out the front of it, which made sense once we got to the "main drag" and learned it was the Scarecrow festival!

So we wandered around the main town and eventually stopped in at a bar and grill, surprise surprise, for a drink. After discovering it was a pretty sleepy old town we headed back to our hood via the Moonstone Beach Bar and Grill. I wasn't overly hungry so had a "1st course" of shrimp and scallops which was HUGE! And Ryan had a New York steak which was also HUGE. We both ate all of ours. Oh dear. Well this trip was never for health purposes.

So then we just went back to the hotel for more blogging and a nightcap of one of our Sonoma wine hauls.

California is very very foggy foggy

We woke up with the intention of getting some shopping done but about the only thing we got to by the time we found a decent place for breakfast was urban outfitters. After I got past the million pairs of skinny jeans and mustache products(finger mustache stickers, domokun with a mustache,  sunglasses with a mustache attached by a chain), I found a sweet shirt which i purchased. It may be ironic on some level because it's a hipster store,  I'm not sure. It's the famous abbey road album cover of the beatles crossing the street but it's got pacman and ghosts photoshoped over them.

We then went to the car rental place and after being slightly worried we were going to be dudded as there were no convertibles in the car yard we were told the guy was bringing it around. We were quite happy as the car was about $50 a day with full insurance. After getting used to driving on the right hand side of the road and lane changing in drivers seat that's on the left on the way back to the hotel, we packed the car. At checkout I informed the hotel that they had some kind of infestation as heidi and i had these massive blotches and itching which was even worse than the day before. The receptionist probably just thought we were meth heads with all the itching.

Anyways we hit the road and once we got out of San Francisco we let the drop top down and felt the breeze in our hair. The windy road along the coast is absolutely magnificent and we made our way down to Santa Cruz for lunch.

Heidi with our sweet ride.

Ryan navigates through the fog while ignoring the bedbug bites up the arm.

Apparently chowder is a big thing in this part of the world as it was on every menu. I gave in and had a clam chowder(chowda, say it frenchy!) and Heidi had a cajun snapper which she thought was going to be the healthy option but it came with half a cm of molten cheese on top as has been the standard faire for this state.

After walking back to the car we dropped the top again and went onward. We stopped in at a little town called Monterey. Had a quick refreshing ale at the wharf which was pleasant. There were a few thousand boats at the marina and it was a small town so I guess the local government gives everyone a boat for moving there.

Setting out to our overnight resting point we drove through farmland where we hit some serious fog. We had to pull over and turn the convertible back into a sedan as the fog also dropped the air temperature by about 10 degrees. Eventually finding our way to Carmel which was kinda like a town in the blue mountains crossed with Mossman but bigger and more bourgeois.


We checked into the dolphin inn and then went for a walk down to the beach. The beach was fog ridden too so we walked back up the hill for a drink at this place called merlot. After a drink there we decided to leave and went to an oyster bar and grill called A.W. Shucks. The burgers there are almost as delicious as the pun of the establishment's name.

We then went home and cained a bottle of Hoot's finest. This isn't a new euphemism for doing it, if you'd paid attention to yesterday's blog the first winery we went to was owned by Hoot Smith.

Don't let the bed bugs bite

Sunday morning we woke up in time to have breakfast in Union Square (smoked salmon bagel for me - woot! and bacon and eggs for Ryan - yawn) before getting picked up for our wine tour. I had initially thought we had booked a tour of the Napa valley, but it turned out to be of the Sonoma valley, just on the other side of the hills. Not a problem because I had already been to the Napa, and we sensed that Napa was a bit snobbish with the ego of the Hunter valley. The wine tour, albeit expensive, was great. We were in a minibus with 8 other people (most tours offered by other companies are big tour coaches - blergh). So we drove over the Golden Gate bridge on what was our first overcast day of the trip, while the driver (named Ryan!) entertained the crowd with his anecdotes and other funny tales. Must be something to do with the name...

So we got to Sonoma and went to our first winery called Kastania - owned a run by a couple called Linda and Hoot Smith. Yep, Hoot was his name. They were a lovely couple and, lucky for us, this is the harvest season so all the vineyards were in the throws of making the wine, and so they showed us how it was all done. Kastania make 1000 cases of wine per year (compared to the millions-plus per year of large-scale wineries), and along with 2 other wineries we visited today, only sell their wine at the cellar door. Kastania major in Pinot Noir, so we basically tried different Pinot Noirs from different years and different Pinot Noir "clones". All were lovely, and we bought a bottle of the 2006 Pinot Noir Reserve which I am enjoying a glass of while I write this post.

Linda and Hoot thought it was great we had come "all the way from Australia", and the rest of our tour group (all Yanks) were impressed with our far we had travelled too. The general concensus seems to be they don't know if they could last a 13 hour plane ride. Hmmm...

So the next vineyard was Homewood - a one-man show where that one man, David Homewood, was in the throws of physically crushing the grapes when we were there. We tried some new stuff, like Zinfandel (which is the most commonly grown grape in Sonoma) and Cabernet Franc (always part of a blend, never drunk on its own). I really like Zinfandel - it's a really light red. And they had another blend called Flying Whizzbangers which I loved, so we bought a bottle of that too.

Then onto Sonoma Plaza for lunch (which I'm 99% sure I also went to on my Napa tour in 2002) and following the heavy dining the previous days, Ryan and I sought out a small lunch and found a food and wine flight. Small it was, although tasty and enough for the moment. Third stop was an Italian vineyard where we tried a bunch of varietals we had never even heard of before which were pretty lovely. Then we finished up at a more established winery and all shared a magnum of bubbly with a stunning outlook (right near where scenes for Bottleshock were filmed, for those who watched it).

Finally, we headed to Sausalito to get the ferry back home to the city at sunset which was beautiful to say the least. I had booked dinner ahead, just near the wharf we were to be dropped at, but because we were all having a good time on the tour it had gone on longer and so we got a later ferry back which dropped us unexpectedly at Fishermans Wharf. No worries, I just changed the dinner booking online on my phone while we were on the ferry, then we hopped in a cab at Fishermans Wharf and arrived at Chaya Brasserie.

Funnily, when I booked online they had asked "Is this dinner a special occasion?" and I had replied that it was my husband's 30th. So when we got to Chaya, not only had they got my last minute (literally) booking change online, but they still had our table ready - the best in the house, looking out to the Bay Bridge, then said Happy Birthday to Ryan. Hahaha. It was Sunday, so wine bottles were 50% off (!) so we shared some albacore tuna sashima for appetiser (not entree in the states!! That is a main!) along with some pinot gris. Then for main I had 2 sushi rolls - a San Francisco and seafood roll which were lovely, and Ryan had some duck breast which was amazing!!!! I'm now a full on duck convert! Then Ryan wanted dessert so he had a croissant bread and butter pudding - and they had a candle on it and written in chocolate Happy Birthday!!!! So mentioning that was the best idea ever....

So we then walked home the 7 blocks home to the Good Hotel. So what wasn't good about it you ask? Well overall it was OK... but the deal breakers were: 1) no fridge, 2) crap pillows and 3) BED BUGS!!!! During the wine trip I gradually came up in all these very itchy bites.... not uncommon for me because mossies love me, but these were big welts and today I have them all over my arms/hands and upper neck/back. They are all swollen too so that I can't wear my rings and my knuckles have disappeared - my right forearm is twice the size of my left too!! Ryan got bit too, but that was discovered on Monday, so that's tomorrow's blog.... stay tuned :)

Free at last!

I woke up at 7am again and walked up to the Fairmont for the last morning session of seminars at the conference. Thank God that was the last time I had to scale those hills - some being so steep they can only be navigated on all fours - but at least by now I had worked out the route which had the least incline per metre.

So the conference - which was pretty interesting overall - wound up to a close, much to my pleasure because now it meant I was well and truly on holidays! I scaled back down the hills at a rate twice as fast as Ryan expected because he was waiting in the hotel lobby and had only just cracked a beer. We had to check out of that hotel and check into another (for some reason SF's overpriced hotels were heavily booked for this week months in advance and so we had no choice but to shift hotels midway). So we got a cab to the Good Hotel, located in between Union Square and SOMA. The irony of the hotel's name, meanwhile, will be addressed in the next blog post.

So we dumped our gear in our new room, then got the train to the Mission district, a Mexican/Latino area, for some of the best burritos in the city apparently. We went to a small joint called El Farolito or something, and lined up with a bunch of other people who seemed to know what they were doing, and ordered a chicken burrito for me and a chicken quesadilla for Ryan. About 5 minutes later they called out our number - "noventa y cinco" - and we picked up our 7.3 kg bag of Mexican deliciousness. We ate them sitting on the ground in a nearby square and both nearly got through half of each of ours. Then we went for a wander around the area, and stopped in for a wee cocktail at a pretty trendy looking Italian bar before heading back to the hotel.

After a brief chill-out and quick change of clothes, we headed out for Ryan's belated 30th birthday celebrations courtesy of me. We walked to the Marriott at Union Square and went up to The View cocktail bar on the 39th floor. We got a table right by the window and enjoyed watching the sun set while having $7 martinis because it was happy hour! Best value drinks ever! Then it was time to head to dinner - I had booked a table at Aziza, a Michelin-starred Morrocan-style restaurant in Richmond. It's not in downtown San Fran so we hopped on a bus and headed to Aziza. Dinner was fabulous - we had the tasting menu which you'll see some pictures of once we get our asses into gear to upload them. The highlights included some squab, lamb shank, an egg yolk surrounded by smoked potato foam (so that it looked like a fried egg) and dessert (I had a hibiscus pannacotta thing) - YUM!!! Another fine dining notch on our belt which was up with there with some of the best.

So we got the bus back, the trip being a little longer than Ryan had expected because when we got off we had to set off in immediate search for a toilet. This was harder to find than you'd expect, but we eventually stumbled across one of the ever faithful Irish pubs - a bit of a dive with about 3 other old blokes who looked like they go there every night and a lovely young Irish girl behind the bar. (Oddly enough, she had to buzz in any man that wanted to use the bathroom, but not any woman). She was very friendly and helpful and tried to find out the spots in the city which might be showing the Rugby semi-final, but alas the time difference meant no where close was showing it (a good thing we didn't stay up for it though!). So we ended up heading home to "the Good Hotel" for a night of slumber...

The rock.

I woke up late and wasn't feeling so great and there was a tour to alcatraz errr starting at 9. Anyways jumped a cab down to pier 33, bought a 5 dollar powerade and a crap coffee on the boat and started feeling human again.

The trip to the rock was awesome. It was a gorgeous day and got to see half the city around to the golden gate bridge and the north of the bay.
Everyone got off the boat and when we landed we were subjected to some health and safety speeches. Obviously living in such a litigious society you need to spell out any common sense less you get sued for duty of care because someone fell off the side of the rock.
Anyways I got a brochure for a dollar and took the audio walking tour. The guys voice was super annoying and slow so I turned it off halfway through and just walked around. The conditions in there looked pretty bad. There were a couple of things that were pretty interesting that i had no idea about. The place was originally built as a military fort and native Americans occupied it as a protest in the 60s.


Anyways I really needed some food about 11 and there was nothing on the island besides chips and hershey bars or whatever yanks eat so I took the next boat back. Walked into the finance district and had some pork neck sliders which were pretty good.
I had a bit of a walk around then went back to the hotel for a power nap which lasted about 2hrs. I got back up after that and had a refreshing ale then went to meet heidi and heather for dinner after they finished the conference.

We went to a Spanish place called bocadillos for some tapas. Heidi couldn't believe that we had a vial of oil to pour over the jamon. If there is one thing jamon needs its more oil.Heather ordered a glass of cider which came in a round tumbler which if it had a blue lid it probably would have looked like a sample of something else yellow coloured.
After that we went home via a bar which had pounding pounding techno music. We noticed this lot that were having a bottle of whiskey at the table. Why doesn't Australia sell spirits by the bottle? It's like we're a bunch of lightweights that can't handle our booze.


Also am loving the free pours with cocktails and spirits over here and there only pints, schooners don't exist. There's also a lot of microbrewews on tap so I haven't had to have any budwizer yet. The only horrible beer i've had so far was some Mexican stuff called XX. The lack of 2 extra x's is obviously why it's shit.

Brave new world

I woke up and walked a couple blocks in search of a hot breakfast sans cheese. After about 20mins I gave in and tried what I thought would be a healthy option which was a Greek panini. Apparently in Greece they have melted cheddar and feta on their sandwiches.

I met heidi for lunch and after trying a few dim sum places which were closed we ended up going to a place called you's. The servings were ridiculous portions again and we probably could have just split a main. We then went for a cleansing ale at Buddha bar.

Heidi had to go back to the conference and i went down for a walk along the piers. It was a really awesome day and really nice to be out near the water. I had a couple of beers then walked back to catch up with Heidi. I took a cable car up California st and hung off the side. Not sure how the ticketing system works but I didn't pay before I had to get off.

Met heidi at a wine bar on polka still called the pour house. I wanted to cain a flight there but heidi didn't have time. Had a couple of glasses of a french and Californian bubbley.

Heidi left for her poster session and i went to an Irish bar to find out if they would be showing the rugby this weekend. Apparently all the bars shut at 2am and the rugby is at 1am which sucks so will probably watch it in the room. At the Irish bar I met this Scottish bloke who had 7 kids who was on a work trip.

We left the bar and went to this area called soma which stands for south of market street. We found this Thai place called basil which was awesome. Had some sake, entrees, some really spicy chicken and asparagus stirfry and a red duck curry. The Scottish bloke was feeling generous with his per diem so he shouted dinner. I put up a small protest.

After dinner we went to a bar called bulldog or something and had a few drinks. Some people there asked us how we knew to come to Soma and I said any place named after a drug from an Aldous Huxley book has to be awesome.

I ended up walking home and Heidi was in bed after a hefty night of drinking with the other scientists.

The wednesday that just kept going.

Attn: Grammar police, I typed this blog up on my phone so its riddled with punctuation and spelling errors, deal with it.

Wednesday we left for the first leg of our flight to frisco at 11am on V Australia. The service on V Australia for a budget carrier is awesome. Especially considering its in the same price bracket as Jetstar and US air which are completely horrible and sometimes don't even serve hot meals. They didn't bat an eyelid even after requesting my 6th vino.

Anyways we arrived at about 7am wed PDT to LAX airport. The horrific tales of massive queues that everyone tells are true. After about an hour and a half of going through customs and security screening between the international and domestic airports we sat down for breakfast at gladstones seafood. Luckily we didn't have to eat any of their "world famous" seafood as it looked dodgy. I had a cheese laden omlete topped with some hot sauce(tabasco).

We then went to our connecting flight to San Francisco and flew to san Francisco finally.
After getting a shuttle bus to our hotel I managed to leave my backpack behind. Luckily the nice driver brought it back about 2hrs later.

After a nap we walked up some ridiculously steep hills and went to check out the Fairmont hotel where heidi's conference is on. After desperately trying to find a bar we just decided to go to the Tonga room which is in the hotel. This bar is all kinds of kitch and had a thunder and lightening storm with downpour ever half hour. Heidi's friend from the Garvan met us there for a few drinks.

The girls left for the conference and i decided to do a bar crawl along the way home, ended up at this dive bar just near our hotel and had some shots with 2 nice hungarian guys and some other local. I came back to a very worried wife. I dunno what she was expecting.