Saturday, May 17, 2008

San Francisco

The very thought of we going to SF was exciting for me. After Dheeraj ditched us on our 2nd weekend and the next Saturday again as he had to go for apartment hunt we did not feel we gonna make it this time to SF :-( but luckily for us... Dheeraj saahab maan gaye...I had been waiting for this trip for a long now. SF is considered to be the only city in bay area (If you claim one more then catch dheeraj (dhiru003ATgmail.com)

It was a 35 miles drive. We took around 45 mins (driving with the max speed of 80 Miles) freeways , 101's, highways, mountains all around... and finally reached Pier 39 our first planned** destination.

SF is completed located on this mountains. The landscape is quite uneven. As we started entering SF my myth of Chahal Pahal , no ppl in the street broke :D... Street and roads were all crowded. Felt good...
to yaha hai Janta...Pier 39 is close to beach and things like Ghirardelli Square, Cruises, Fisherman Wharf and shopping center are very close by. Its one of the prime tourist attractions in SF. The shopping center near Pier 39 was really amazing and something i hadn't seen before. There was an int- e-resting shop(speaking in local language here :P) devoted to Lefties in the World... Jay Shah hai re tere liye kuch special :-) .
There we finally reached a place from where we could see more than180 degree view of the ocean... I saw my 1st sea lion in the ocean and got excited and was sharing it with Dheeraj and Omkar... We saw the Alcatraz jail (had never heard of it before) but is very important tourist attraction here. There are these telescopes there, where you can view a close view of the jail for 50 cents. We just kept roaming around for another 10 mins, heard some strange noises from our left side... we saw that there were 100's of Lazy sea lions shouting/yelling at us or
probably making mockery...You never know :-) Some of them fighting with each other, to get a place on the docks kept exclusively for them. ( There is sea lion reserve project going around to prevent them) Sea lions are very similar to seals.

We then deiced to take a cruise which will take us through Golden Gate bridge and then Alcatraz jail for a duration of 2 hours and 22 $$$. Luckily for us there was another 25 mins to cruise, so we decided to roam around in fisherman's wharf. On our way we saw Wax musuem. Did not took ticket as its was not looking that great and the very same with Ridley's musuem. We saw our 1st view of Steep roads on the way... Good thing about this trip was that weather was at its best...Always motivating us.
[ Surya Devta ki jay ho ]

On our way back to 22 $ cruise we found out a very cheap cruise... for only 10 bucks. We were extremely happy (very obvious)... The 1st thing very similar to India we noticed that people were standing on the road and persuading for the cruise... felt good and thought we should bargain :P (
Purani aadat hai yaar..mushkil hai... dabe rehana itne din tak)... There was man there who used to hide in a artificial small tree and then used to come out of it instantly and scare people moving on the street.. Remember "Just for Laugh... Gags" we see on the TV... very similar to it.

Then started our cruise...The good thing about this cruise was the boat (whatever u call it) was small so ocean was very near to us, which would not have been possible with the 22$ cruise( which was a grand one, big ship with good height). Our cruise was truly AWESOmee. ekdam Jhakaas... Strong cool breezes
and bumpy ocean ride made it like a real/natural roller coaster.. Guys recall our Rishikesh Trip.. Kapil, maine, Vikrant aur sush ne ulti maja liye the.. Bilkul waise hi... We were never allowed to balance ourselves... kabhi idhar to kabhie udhar.. dagamag dagmag :D... we were nearing Golden Gate.. jo ek tammana thi puri hone wali thi... But had a very basic doubt ...why was it called golden gate??? no one knew about it there... On our way we saw many ships/small/ big having some theme... looked like each of them were there for some kind of a fancy competition...One can also see Bay Bridge opposite to Golden gate Bridge... (its a combination of Cantilever bridge and suspension bridge and is bigger in length than golden gate bridge)... Mast maja aaya...We went straight beneath the bridge...After snaps we proceeded towards Alcatraz Jail ( Ye log pata nahi aise island pe jail kyu banate hai)... Bahut saare snaps liye. Our humty dumpty ride was approaching its end and then happend the worst part of the cruise...at the very end. Our Boat was caught by Coastal Police for violation of Safety law.Not sure what the poor guy broke. but i felt pity for him.. He would have only earned 300 $ but had to pay a lot to those officers.. Hopefully un cops ne use chode dena chaiyye... God please help him... The ship owner still maintained his cool and wished us good trip ahead.

We went towards Ghirardelli Square where Omkar and Dheeraj had an icecream...very famous here. I did not had it..EGG... Thats where i saw my first glimpse of The Big LIMO Car and a cop riding a cycle :P After some more tehelana we had our lunch.. PIZZA...
our safest bet :D

Then we drove towards Japanese Tea garden. On the way we saw these houses... all made of wood and there is no space between each of them(full utilization of space)... Pata nahi... how people manage staying in these houses??... probably everyone likes hearing their neighbors blah blah...Sab kai sab awaaz ek dusre ko sunai aati hogi na??? The houses/look really good..neat and clean.. I would say it was an Impressive construction...

Japanese garden did not turn out that great. Its a good garden but was not worth the 4$ paid for it.. and we all agreed on it. So then we decided to take a drive to Golden gate bridge...
and thats turned out to be the most interesting par our trip... awesome thing happened...(difficult to describe here, but am trying) We kept moving up and up on the road and suddenly we did not saw anything... (similar to a cliff)...and there was way down the steepest road i had seen in my life and we were gonna drive over it...Its called by the name Lombard street here and there any many such roads here...
Ultimate steep tha yaar..(check the snap :P) Rongte khade ho gaye.. bechara dheeraj hamara driver:D.. pata nahi kya hua hoga uska.. dil dhadak raha tha
But it was definitely adventurous and interesting...By GOD abhi tak ka best driving experience tha... thrillax ho gaye hum sabhi... (To put up in Dheeraj's words) Would like to drive once on this street once i get my Driving License...he he..
On this so steep road people had parked their cars... are agar ek thoda sa bhi dhakka laga na puri car neeche chali jayegi...chakna choor..pata nahi kya hoga, kisi wooden ghar se takrai to...god knows.. All cross/chownks are at the same height and with same steepness, which looks so great.. Imagine you standing at a cross and charoon taraf roads are full steep (50 degrees)... kaisa laga??? hmmm... mast na...same here :-)

Then we went to GG bridge.. People were driving crazily at 45 miles and the lanes were very narrow...
Thodi si bhi gadi idhar udhar and accident ki line lag jayegi.. but since people are very disciplined.. kuch issue nahi.. There was a vista point where you can have a look of the whole city... ultimate view tha.. sab kuch dikhata hai.. Then we walked over the GG bridegg.. maja aa gaya.. mast thandi thandi hawa chal rahi thi...kewl man..

On our return we had an awesome 280 CA south drive which was a perfect finish to the trip.
Thanks Dheeraj buddy... we will be troubling you a lot during our 2 month stay here... and we will not let you mind it... Ha Ha Ha.

To sum it up - If you are visiting SF make sure you drive across one of Steep roads. Its gonna be pakka a lifetime experience.

Snaps here :
http://picasaweb.google.com/chandan.maloo/SanFranciscoTrip
http://picasaweb.google.com/omkar.kurode/SanFranciscoTrip

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