San Francisco; Chinatown, Union Square and Twin Peaks

I returned from the USA Monday morning but have been super jet lagged and having a hard time getting a normal sleeping pattern, but I am getting there :)
I will finally share the remaining 9 days of my stay there.

On the second day I went to China town and also Union Square and the Twin Peaks.
I went early in the morning (I kept waking up at 6 am there, now I can not wake up at home lol).

As the shops were still closed ı could enjoy the beauty of the buildings and streets peacefully and could easily take nice pictures without tourists in the frame :)

I never been to a 'Chinatown' or China for that matter, it was so funny that even the ads, banks, street art and street lights were Chinese.

Mostly it were souvenir shops, but also lots of restaurants. I did not have anything to eat as I was there so early, I should have gone closer to lunch, maybe next time :)

The 'skeleton' of the buildings were all typical San Francisco houses but they got a Chinese make up.

I loved this East West Bank, and you heard a lot of Chinese, more than English at the hour I was there.

A pity that they had no Chinese traffic signs below the English ones :)

After my visit to the far East I went to Union square which was a mess due to a large construction work, so I only took a few pictures there.

Union Square is where are the fancy shops are, so not something my budget allows me to shop, but it is a famous landmark of the city.

I was more interested in the pretty buildings than the expensive clothing :)

On my way to Twin Peaks I saw a part of the neighborhood that is very popular among the LGTB community. San Francisco's population is 14% that belongs to the community and there is a huge pride parade here every year. As you can see lots of rainbows in this neighborhood.

It is also a very safe neighborhood as people are very protective (gay bashers will be sorry if they start anything violent).

The last part I took the bus as the roads are extremely steep, so steep that you actually climb a gazillion stairs to climb to the top of the city (Twin Peaks).

It was foggy so you can not see the sea.

Due to the height it was also much colder and super windy, I didn't stay long as I was freezing!
California is a very warm state, San Francisco however is usually about 20 degrees celsius and in the mornings and nights pretty cool.

More to come!

Hello from the USA

While a lot of our readers and customers are from the USA, this time I am in the USA myself!
This is my very first time to go across the ocean and it has been so exciting to be here and explore. I arrived in San Francisco after a very long journey of about 30 hours. With a 10 hour time difference I was jet lagged for about 3 days but during that time I walked a lot around the city.

View from my hotel room window with beautiful old buildings right across.

The room itself was stylish and even had a map which I love, it was also pretty central so I could walk a lot, I eventually walked a little too much as my legs ached from day two on but that can not really be avoided when you visit a city for a short time :)

On the first day I walked about 15 km and saw so many amazing old buildings, the city is very picturesque and some  houses seem like to be made out  of candy :)

I walked some streets that are not touristic at all so I had it very nicely calm and could just enjoy the surroundings.

At some spots were some beautiful trees like large scale bonsai trees.

Before it was clear that I was going to San Francisco I did not know much about the city, for example the weather is totally not what you would expect from California and is pretty cool and even chilly in the nights and during the day it is like Fall or Spring. It has its own climate really, and as soon as you drive out of there it is hot.

The roads go up and down and up and down and some are actually very steep and hard to walk, both up and down is a tough exercise and apparently car brakes are changed here twice as much compared to most other places, because of all these steep roads.

Here below you can see the Lombard street, famous due to the fact that it goes zigzag down and it was very crowded and hard to take a decent picture.

This road down towards the pier was actually so steep that going down my toe nails were pushing in my shoes, it was a hard trip lol :)

And my first and for now last peek at the Golden Gate bridge, not much to see due to fog which is apparently very often the case.

I love love love these fairy tale buildings, they are so very pretty and sweet.

I walked the entire Fisherman's wharf, passed all the piers.

They had a lovely souvenir shop full with globes, maps and nautical stuff, totally my style :)

This is the wheel of an old boat, a boat with a huge paddle wheel which were usually used for rivers.

Lots of fish restaurants. as I do not eat fish I was quite hungry by the time I had walked the entire wharf :)

The famous pier 39, unfortunately I did not see any sea-lions, but it was pretty anyway, I was starting to get pretty tired so I didn't investigate much so maybe I just missed them.

And this is the Bay Bridge which is very long and much used to get out of the city.

There are also a lot of modern buildings, but of course I prefer the old ones.

This was just from the first days and I am still in the states for 6 more days so I will blog again as soon as possible :) I hope you enjoyed the trip with me!