Travelling Dragon
Travelling around the worldArchive for March, 2010
serendipity
It’s been a good but weird day. We stood in line for almost an hour to have breakfast at a local hotspot called Mama’s, the food and the staff were great. It was different because when you entered the restaurant they had you stand in front of the cooking area and order your food and pay before seating you. It worked out better because people didn’t waste time deciding what they wanted and the food got out quickly. I had two poached eggs over a bed of black beans with homemade salsa and soft tortillas. We than slowly made our way down to fishermen warf but not before stopping over at a few shops to pick up a few necessities. Once there we hopped on a San Francisco trolley that took us all over the city. We got to go inside Golden Gate Park, see the street and house where Full House was based in, see Union Square and the Golden Gate Bridge. Initially, we were only suppose stay at the bridge for 20 minutes but my friend accidently gave the gift shop cashier $200 instead of $100 because the bills were stuck together. Unfortunately when we went back to tell the cashier what happened he couldn’t do anything about it until he cashed in his till. We left our phone numbers and hoped that they would return the $100. When we were leaving the store we saw our trolley bus leaving and we were stuck for an hour waiting for the next trolley. Lucky we were left behind because the cashier called and said his till was $100 over so he returned the money and we got to meet another Canadian travelling in San Francisco too. Afterwards we landed back at Fishermen’s Warf and we did some shopping! We saw a local boutique shop and we both got dresses.
We also ended up going to La Mar for dinner, the restaurant suggested to us by the Canadian couple we ran into the night before. The food was amazing. Most of the food was authentic Peruvian or Peruvian inspired dishes. We shared two appetizers, a sashimi like dish with Mahi Mahi fish and special sauce and a salad with awesome dressing and pickled carrots. My friend had a beef tenderloin dish and I had a seafood dish with shrimp, squid, octopus, mussels and clams over rice. The atmosphere and servers were great.
We had some issues getting back to our hostel because everyone is out in full force celebrating St. Patrick’s day and it took us forever to find a taxi to get back but we eventually found one standing in front of the Hyatt Hotel and got back in one piece.
Why I Love Canadians
So in the interest of full disclosure I am Canadian, I love Canada, I grew up in Canada and Canada will always be home to me but that is not why I love Canadians.
While at dinner at L’Osteria del fonno, we ran into an older couple from Abbotsford, BC. The lady noticed my Canadian Olympic red mitts and struck up a conversation with us about the Olympics. She and her husband had just spent a week in San Francisco and were leaving the next morning. We asked them about what they did and if they had any suggestions about where to go. They started talking about visiting different places and biking across the Golden Gate Bridge. They suddenly whipped out these coupon books and gave them to us. The coupons were essentially 9 day bus passes for any public transit in the city, free tickets to the Academy of Science, 15% off coupons for Bloomingdale’s and other stuff.
They were so kind and generous to us and even though we’ve never met and well probably never meet again, the fact we were Canadian was enough to bond us. They embody the reasons why I love Canadians
In San Francisco
Hello people who don’t read this blog.
Took a ferry from Victoria to Vancouver, drove to Bellingham International Airport, hopped on a plane, took a shuttle to the train, took the train to city, took a cab to the hostel =
San Francisco!
It’s the first trip I’ve taken since moving to a new school in August so I’m excited. It’s been raining most of the time I’ve been here but that didn’t make visiting Alcatraz any less amazing. Going through the jail house and listening to the audio tour (narrated by former guards and inmates) was amazing and walking through the halls was also really cool.
My friend and I found pedicures for only $17 and we made appointments for Sunday!
We also found a really sweet hat shop and the shop keeper directed us to a little Italian restaurant in little Italy so I have high expectations for dinner tonight.
