Day  10- Yosemite

I feel that all 3 of us weren't very impressed with Yosemite. I think it pales in comparison with Yellowstone. Our guide was a young lad who was pretty slack. The waterfalls had dried up, so we spent the 3 hours of free time slacking. I was pretty tired and this might be due to the fact that we only reached San Francisco at 10 plus the night before. Our tour comprises of 1 Taiwanese couple, 1 British couple who were quite friendly and 1 American-European couple.

 <Yosemite>

 <One waterfall which has yet dried up>

Day  11- San Francisco

We did the touristy stuff on Day 11. We headed for the Golden Gate bridge to attend a free guided tour. It proved to be a bad day to view the Golden Gate bridge, or it might be said  that we had experienced the real San Francisco- a totally foggy San Francisco. The guide provided us some information on the bridge and hence our trip was not totally meaningless.

<A foggy Golden Gate Bridge>

After Golden Gate bridge, we headed to the fisherman wharf and enjoyed our lunch at McCormick restaurant. The clam chowder is really delicious, so is the Calamari.

 <Tasty Calamari>

<Delicious Clam Chowder>

We walked towards the pier area after our heavy lunch. We visited the Hyde Pier before proceeding to Pier 43 1/2 for our sunset cruise. Our chosen date wasn't a good one as it continued to be rather foggy. Along with the fog came the cold and windy weather.

<Sunset viewed from cruise>

After our sunset cruise, we went for ice-cream at Ghiradeli Sq and we bought the popular chocolates at the official store.

Day  12- San Francisco

We took the iconic cable car (it's actually a tram) to the Chinatown in the morning as the cable car station was rather near to my hotel. As this California line was less crowded, we could have the outward facing seats. I really like the outward facing seats. I can feel the wind and see the slopes clearly. Ps:San Francisco is a hilly city. It has many slopes. People can choose to stand and hold onto the railing. The cable car is manually operated.

 <Cable car>

<There are many steeper slopes and the cable car doesn't go too fast down these slopes.>

San Francisco has quite a huge Chinese population. It's quite common to bump into Chinese on buses or at the hotels. San Francisco chinatown is just like any other Chinatown. It's lined with shop houses. We searched for the shop selling fortune cookies. It's a very small shop in one of the alleys and apparently it attracted many tourists. We overheard a US tour guide describing Dim Sum as fast food. I didn't think that it's a suitable description. Dim Sum isn't really fast food. We walked towards the Coit tower and we finally caught glimpse of the golden gate bridge from that area.

<Top part of Golden Gate Bridge>

<Slopes of San Francisco>

We had our dim sum lunch at one of Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. I love the Siew Mai. The prawn was fresh and sweet. After lunch, we took a bus to Union Sq and began our shopping at Forever 21. We spent a few hours there.

Day  13- San Francisco

This was our last day in US as well as San Francisco. We wanted to take the Powell-Hyde cable car line, so we had to queue at the Union Sq area for the cable car. It was a pretty long queue. This line was recommended by Lonely Planet. I could understand why it was recommended. There were lotsa of steep slopes, but I couldn't really enjoy the ride as the cable car was simply too crowded and I was sitting on the inward facing seats. We dropped off the cable car at the Lombard St. The street is famous for being crooked. C commented that it's just like our multi-storey carpark.

  <Lombard St>

We took the next cable car to the Fisherman Wharf. It's a sunny day and finally we saw the full golden gate bridge from the Hyde Pier. We walked to Pier 39, but I didn't find it interesting. It's very touristy. We took the street car to Union Sq where I gone crazy at H&M. I bought a working dress and 2 skirts. The H&M in San Fran is defintely cheaper than London's. The prices are affordable kind. We went to Macy next as this was highly recommended by a friend, but we didn't find it fascinating as it's just another departmental store. We decided to nuah at the Cheesecake Factory next. It's strange that there were such a long queue. We were given an electronic queue device. When the table was ready, the device will beep to inform us. We ordered the Godiva cheesecake, the original cheesecake and a fruit cheesecake. I like the Godiva cheesecake the most. We decided to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory as we were too lazy to move around. We continued with a bit of shopping before we took the cable car back to our hotel. Our flight was at 1am, so we took the cab to the airport at around 10pm.

<A clear view of the golden gate bridge>

Meals on the SQ flight was rather interesting. there's Ee Fu mee and Chee Cheong Fun with Siew Mai (this is probably because we stopped over in Hong Kong).

This was our last day at the Yellowstone and we only had half a day at the national park as we needed to catch the flight at 5.50pm. We went back to the Running bear cafe for breakfast. When we went on our lst day in West Yellowstone, it's a late lunch time and there was no crowd. When we reached the restaurant for our breakfast, the restaurant was almost full and there was queue. I guessed that's not surprising considering the popularity of the cafe and the timing. West Yellowstone is really a very small town and I believe most people came here due to its proximity to the Yellowstone National Park. It's really not surprising that the town is pretty quiet during the day.

<Breakfast @ Running Bear>

  <Soft pancakes>

We visited the firehole lake drive where we drove and stopped by the various features such as the Great Fountain Geyser. I really hoped to see the eruption of the geyser. When I saw people sitting around, I thought there's chance, but the timing on the board didn't suggest so. When I saw the predicted timing at the Old Faithful area later on, I realised that it was within the 2 hours of the predicted timing. That explains why there were people sitting around to wait for the eruption.

<Great Fountain geyser>

<A smaller geyser in the firehole lake drive.>

We wanted to visit the Black Sand basin but there's no parking slot. So we went straight to the Old Faithful area. I would not regret at all though... When we reached the Old Faithful area, I was looking at the perdicted timings. There were a few geysers whose predicted timings were rather close. There's the Grand Geyser, Great Fountain Geyser and Riverside Geyser. Even though there was a window of 2 hours from the predicted timing, we were at the 2nd 2hours window and somehow I felt that there was chance. Hence, I was urging my companions to give it a try. We slowly walked towards the geyser and as we did so, we saw the eruption of a geyser from a distance. I should think that it's the Lion Geyser. As we walked towards the Grand Geyser, it started erupting, but thank god the eruption lasted for quite a while. We still managed to watch it from the viewing area.

 <Grand geyser from a distance>

<Eruption of Grand Geyser>

The Grand Geyser is really "grand". I love it! It's a fountain type of geyser. The eruption is of great height and it last for quite a while. After the main eruption, there were a few more eruptions before it finally came to a stop. When it finally came to a stop, there was an uncoordinated round of applause. As we left the area, we saw the eruption of sawmill geyser. This was really a geyser day! Even the castle geyser had some activities. There were small eruptions.

After the round of geyser viewing, we had to return to our motel to get our luggage and drove to the airport. The airport is really small and the check-in area is small and informal.

<Sunset at the Salt Lake City airport while we waited for the flight to San Francisco>