Good Vibrations - Blogabond

Overheard while walking towards Market Street:

Little Girl: "Mummy mummy! What song do you think this is?"

(Proceeds to sing at the top of her lungs very loudly) "Row row row your UNDERWEARRRRRR, gently down the CAAAARRRR!!!!"

We couldn't help but snigger and burst out laughing as we walked ahead.

Yes, everybody is happy in SF. Everybody who has been here tells me they love SF. It's the only city I know of that has the honour of achieving a 100% 'I Love' hit rate - not London, not Shanghai, not New York. Many cities try to stake their claim on the "we have something for everyone" for "people from all walks of life" cliche. But uh uh, get your dirty paws off the title everyone, for in my books, SF is taking home the trophy tonight.

We've had a very good time here. So much so that we are considering changing our departure flight from LA to SF in 2010. So much so that we are considering buying an apartment and moving here. Okay, the latter part was just me dream-typing.

In a bid to save money, we only kept the car for 2 days in SF, to be used specifically to access the really must-see places - like Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. It's scary where our priorities lie - never mind the scenic Marin Headlands and Point Reyes National Park or even the obligatory drive across the Golden Gate Bridge! Rollercoasters? Okay, let's go! La di daaa!

On the first day when we had the car and I had Dannie the Driverman, we scaled Twin Peaks for a view of the city sprawling at our feet. It was such a clear beautiful day with no hint of the notorious San Francisco fog that we could see all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz and the Marin coast beyond.

The king sits atop a hill and peruses his fine city.

Little professionals.

The top-of-the-world feeling? Yeaaah. Definitely.

After that, we drove to have a look at the world-famous 'Crookedest Street in the World - Lombard Street. Also cos Billy, our beloved brother-in-law, had asked Dan to let him vicariously live through the experience of skateboarding down Lombard Street. And of course, my dearest He Who Does Not Read Travel Guides thought it was no biggie, and then promptly shrieked "MY BROTHER-IN-LAW IS TRYING TO KILL ME!!" when his one and only source of travel information (aka The Wife) educated him on the perils of the 'S' street.

Anyway, we parked the car nearby and went to have a look. There was actually a line of cars waiting to drive down Lombard - which to us looked like an ordinary ramp in a HDB multi-storey carkpark back home.

This ain't the supermarket check-out queue.

Thrill-seeker. Pffft.

Hmmm. Maybe it looks more crooked from bottom up. So we trotted down to have a looksee.

Twist and shout!

Looked the same. Even when I was sitting on Dan's shoulders to get a better view of the curves (not that adding our heights together makes us the human equivalent of the Empire State anyhow.) Anyway, since it was such a famous amos street, we just took pictures.

My mule.

On our car-less days, we hopped onto the 'F'-Line streetcar that took us all the way down Market Street, along the Embercadero and plopped us at the doorstep of Pier 39. Dannie got a thrill out of activating the backdoors of the streetcar by being the first passenger to step down onto the second step. He kindly offered me the chance to try it on our second ride but the driver spoiled his fun by activating the doors herself.

It rained on our first day at Fisherman's Wharf (or Fisherman's Barf according to Dan) so we headed back again the next day. What a difference the sun made! We laughed, sang, skipped, cheered along with other people at the wrestling sealions, posed for pictures with the spring flowers, dug into dugeness crabs, dug (literally) into a bowl of clam chowder and ate the bowl, tricked obnoxious greedy seagulls by pretending to toss food and laughing at them, watched the ferries sailing in, tried on silly hats at Krazy Kaps, made Dan feel at home at the Lefty's store for left-handers. The snapdragons were in full bloom. I showed Dan how to make 'dragons' 'snap' by squeezing the flowers at the nape and the 'jaws' open. That was fun.