After the wonderful breakfast at Mama's, we headed towards Coit Tower for some elevated view of the city. San Francisco city is pretty hilly. Where were a few streets that were pretty steep. This is probably where you would use the full range of gears on your bicycle if you cycle around. Looking at the street below, it reminds me of a scene out of the movie Inception.
The route to Coit Tower is a pretty steep one too.
The view from Coit Tower was awesome. You could see the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz from there.
We then head toward the Wharf area to where Levi Strauss & Co. is. Along the way, we chance upon a fire engine.
Frankly before this trip, I didn't know Levi's originated from San Francisco. It was born during the Gold Rush era of San Francisco.
We visited the Levi Strauss Museum and had a little history lesson. The row of jeans in the photo below are all "501" from different era, from the "XX" it started to the current "501" style.
A short stroll and we reach the Wharf area. We were waiting for the streetcar F Line to take to Castro but somehow 2 streetcars went pass us without stopping. We asked a local who came to the streetcar stop after that and she too were puzzled. Thankfully the third streetcar did stop.
You could see the Bay Bridge from the Wharf too. And the same fire engine. Must be a busy day for them.
Once you reach Castro, you would notice a number of rainbow flags around the area. Castro is currently the largest gay neighborhood in USA and the rainbow flag is LGBT pride flag or the gay pride flag (source from Wikipedia). Seems like a nice place to sit down, have a cup of coffee and just people watch.
From Castro, we walked to Haight and checked out Amoeba Music. This place is huge with heaps of CDs, Vinyls, DVDs, Blurays and collectibles. How huge? Like Takashimaya B2 Concourse area, times two, maybe even two and a half.
From Haight we took a bus to Golden Gate Bridge. Having seen it featured in a number of movies, you have to see it in person to see how magnificent it is. Truly beautiful.
We end the day with dinner at Umami Burger. Lilian read about this burger joint. For me, burger in USA, hell yeah! We went to the joint at Soma and the extremely friendly staff got us a nice table.
There were so many choices, we just wanted to try them all. In the end we settled for the Tuffles fries, Slash Burger for me and Triple Pork Burger for Lilian. The Slash burger is the mohawk looking burger, with super thick beef patty done "medium", braised shiitakes, carmalised onion, cheese, avocado spread and parmesan crisp as the mohawk. Triple Pork Burger has thick fresh ground pork patty, applewood smoked bacon and the works.
We find the flavours very rich, almost overwhelming for us. But that's the general sentiments for rich food in USA. Once you get pass that, you will find that each bite is very exciting. As you bite in and munch, the explosion of different flavours inside is fun.
From Kings St., we took a bus back for an early nights rest. Tomorrow we have an early bus to catch for our day-trip to Yosemite.
Trip links:
Day 1: San Francisco - Fisherman's Wharf
Day 2: San Francisco - Mama's
Day 3: Yosemite - Day trip to a National Park Day 4 & 5: Enjoy San Francisco
Day 6: Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas!
