Day 1, 19062008, Los Angeles - San Francisco

And then John came. So we walked from Tom Bradley to Terminal 1 for our flight in the morning.

We had like, 7 or 8 hours worth of wait, and it was soooo cold.


Thank goodness for....


Ivan's flask!


So everyone had hot milo! (Some of them miraculously had glass cups - look at the food tray of Day 0)

When time finally came for us to check-in...


There was a super long queue for Southwest! To think we were camping overnight. We still had to queue 'cos people were already there before the counters opened!

Here's a picture of Southwest.


Then another nearly 2 hours' worth of flight to San Francisco.




I never learnt what the above was about but it's really interesting.

Touch down.

Upon reaching San Francisco we took a lot of time to find the way to the BART station (a la MRT in San Francisco) and when we finally found it, we don't know how to operate the ticket machine!

However after a while, a man came to tell us that that BART was free till noon!!!!!! HAHA. Can you believe it? It was supposed to be USD 5.35 but in the end we paid nothing!

It turned out that that day was Spare The Air day, meaning all public transport in SF was free!!! They were trying to encourage the people to get out of their cars and use public transport instead.

They are really strict about letting your seats to passengers who need them more than you do.


When we got out of BART, check it out! Forever 21!



And our hike to the hostel began. Hike. I mean it. With all our luggages and the steep slopes up, it was realllly energy-consuming.


Couldn't check in yet 'cos the room wasn't ready, so we came out again to begin our itinerary for the day. Met Jessica around.

If you noticed, we haven't bathed for 30+ hours already. And I had no proper sleep 'cos I can't sleep well on planes. That may explain why I've been so tired from Day 0.

This is Union Square. With a beautiful statue on top.


Elle-vee in SF.


We made our way to Japantown to look around as well as to have lunch.



But this is not the Kinokuniya we know in Singapore.

We had lunch at this Japanese diner and the food wasn't really good. Plus food's expensive in America.


After that we got kinda lost somewhere and seem to have taken a longer route to the Golden Gate Park. A number of things to see there, supposedly.


We reached the Conservatory of Flowers but didn't go in. We were too tired to go everywhere, plus we had to pay to go inside. =S

Then we walked to de Young Museum. Didn't go too. Marvelled at the architecture, moved on.


And next to de Young was the Japanese Tea Garden. Didn't enter too. But at least we have a picture to share with you.


At that point the rest were too tired to move on, so it was just me, Dai Jing, Chui Ying and Ivan who continued the route while the rest waited somewhere. I heard that they even managed to catch some sleep.

We continued to the Strawberry Hill/Stow Lake.


Had to climb up the hill - the guidebook says that a superb view will greet us.


And hey, the view's really cool and worth the climb.






We wanted to go to the Haight-Ashbury district, where the hippie-bohemian area is, but it wasn't on the way and we didn't bother in the end.

Met the rest and made our way back via the streetcar. For free!



Here's what I caught on the streetcar.



The translink's already available in Singapore!

I think we all were just too tired that we missed out on a lot of things. But still, SF is a damn beautiful place to be in. The people are really friendly too.