Life on the Rock

We had an early start this morning to get to the ferry to take us to Alcatraz. It was overcast and foggy, and a quick 15 minute ferry ride over to The Rock and we were there.

Alcatraz is very well set up - your entrance fee includes the ferry ride there and back (where you have a great view of the city), and an audio tour of the former prison. The audio tour was fantastic - it's commentary that leads you around the prison, narrated by former guards, inmates, and families that used to be on the island. Very informative, they have set some of he cells up like they used to be (apart from the prisoners), and the commentary gives you a real feel for what life was like. As it's so close to the city, the prisoners could often hear the noise from the city if the wind was blowing the right direction. So close - yet so far away.

You only made it to Alcatraz as a prisoner if you were a bad boy - so you always came from another prison beforehand, where you misbehaved, and got sent there. So it was the baddest of the bad that were there. It eventually got shut down in 1963 due to the high running costs, as they had to ship all the food and everything over from SF.

After getting back to the mainland it was time for lunch and then a big walk - I may have mentioned that SF is one hilly city. It was quite a hike up to Lombard ST - which has a section that earns it the title of the crookedest street in the world. It zig zags 8 times down the hillat a gradient of 27%, and is filled with flowers and shrubs, so is quite pretty. There are people there all the time, taking photos and walking up and down the footpath, and cars driving down constantly. The residents there must dread having ever bought on that part of Lombard!

After walking up there, I was too scared to walk down in case we ended up having to walk up again, so we stayed up high and made our way slowly over to Chinatown, and came across Green St on the way - a street so steep they have cut steps into the footpath to make it easier. The cars were parked at such a steep angle, just pushing the drivers door open must take some serious muscle. Crazy.

Chinatown is supposedly the biggest Chinatown outside of China. Have to say it didn't have as much character as some of the other ones I've seen though, but still interesting and provides a good contrast to the rest of the city.

Then it was back to the hotel for a rest before heading out to the brilliant local Thai for the 3rd and final time. Damn, we'll miss that place. Fingers crossed we find somewhere like that in Vancouver, or we might find ourselves moving to SF instead....