Flight home

I knew that I needed to leave the hotel by 9pm at the very latest, but decided to go at 8pm so I could have a look around the Polaris lounge - it was a good job I went an hour earlier!

First of all, I turned the wrong way up 7th Avenue instead of down it, so ended up going 6 blocks the wrong way, with all the luggage.  I walked back, past the Roku office again and down to the station, and then couldn't find track 13 at all until the last moment.  The train was "full".  The seats are arranged in a 3 and 2  arrangement, and 2 people were sitting in every 3, and 1 person in every 1, so, like many others, I ended up standing in a vestibule instead.  For me that was about half an hour, the whole way to Newark Airport.

At the airport, the TSA Precheck was closed (apparently, it shuts at 8pm) so instead of using the touchless pre-check verification and being through in a couple of minutes, it took over 30 minutes with all the usual stuff that you don't need to do if you're pre-vetted.

I finally reached the Polaris lounge at 9.50pm and was told it was closing at 10pm.  They'd already stopped serving food and were putting the buffet away already.  So everybody had to leave, with still over an hour until our flight departed.

At the game, an awful lot of people were queued up for pre-boarding - about 40 or so, which was odd.  The queue for group 1 was also long, and the queue for group 2 longer still.  There didn't seem to be many people in groups 3-6.  After a while, the lady at the podium made an announcement that only Premier 1K holders should be pre-boarding - and all the people in group 1 trying to sneak through early should go to the back of the group 1 line.  The main advantage to jumping the queue is having luggage space on board - which doesn't affect Polaris Business, as each seat has its own reserved overhead bin with plenty of space.

Final view of New York, just after take-off

Then, as we sitting waiting for boarding to complete, the man in the row in front of me started a phone call and was jabbering on loudly.

He continued through the announcements, the safety briefing and ignored the instructions to put his seatbelt on and shoulder strap and to stop talking on the phone.  

Repeatedly.

The flight attendant, Angie, actually had to stand at his seat and force him to put his seatbelt on and stop being on the phone - this was after the captain had requested that the crew take their seats for the imminent take-off.

Dinner was served just after midnight!

Although he put the seatbelt on, presumably, and stopped talking momentarily, as soon as she had gone, he resumed talking on the phone.

The man across the aisle from him told him to stop - to no avail.  He was still jabbering away as we took off.  Presumably once we got high enough, he lost the signal.

During the flight, his friend who was sitting in economy, frequently came up to stand next to his bay, overlooking mine.  Although he kept being shooed away, he still kept coming back and loitering.

 

Dessert is served separately

I did manage to get over 2 hours sleep after dinner service had concluded with the usual options, but my favourite is the ice cream sundae - they now also offer a sprinkling of chocolate chips.

After we landed at Heathrow, the captain announced that we must all remain seated with seatbelts on as we had to wait for somebody who was coming to meet the flight.

You can probably guess which single passenger totally ignored this instruction too, stood up, starting getting his luggage down and mucking about unpacking and repacking bags until he was shouted at to sit down.

Our shadow on the Thames by the bridge

I suspect I wasn't the only one who hoped the delay was for somebody to come to take him away for repeatedly ignoring crew instructions - the announcements always point out that it's against FAA regulations to disobey - but sadly, it seems that it was somebody in economy who might have been  receiving a special welcome to the UK.

Maybe it was for his friend for persistently being not in his assigned cabin.

I think the guy was lucky not to be turfed off the plane at Newark - I imagine the flight attendants wished he had been!

I got through passport control very quickly at the first time of asking the computer and into a shower suite at the arrivals lounge quite quickly.

After breakfast, I bought my train ticket home and started the trek to the railway atation, which always takes an age.

London

I finally arriving home just after 4pm, a couple of hours before my Tesco delivery arrived.

I hope I'm one of the ones that receives a survey about the flight, as I'll have plenty to say about this one!

My calculations on Premier Qualifying Points were correct: I reached United Premier Silver on arriving in New York, which completed the 4th flight, which is the minimum you need for any status

I reached Premier Gold on arriving in London, only just, but I got there.  That means I can now claim automatic Marriott Bonvoy Gold too, which will get my better wi-fi in the hotels, improve my chances of getting rooms at short notice and improve my chances of getting late checkouts.

I think that means I now have the first part of the Marriott Lifetime Gold status sorted - of having Gold for 7 years overall.  I just need to stay another 90 nights or so to reach 300 lifetime nights to win the lifetime award.

Final day

Daytime view from my room

I left my bags at the hotel, as my flight tonight leaves at 11.20pm, so there is no need to make it to the airport until fairly late.

Sadly, the Classified restaurant has been closed and the normal United Polaris lounge has been expanded to take over that space.  That's a shame, because it was always a quiet place to sit and wait for your flight, although it will make dinner an awful lot cheaper - as it should be free, but we'll see!

As I was only in the room for two nights, I hadn't actually seen this view with nice weather.  You can just about see the bay in the distance.  This is looking south over Manhattan. 

I decided to visit Rockaway Beach, which is on the south-east limit of New York's borough of Queens.  I was able to get on an 'A' train which took me there.

I've been here before, but I still like the way that the train trundles slowly over the subway bridge, crossing the large lagoon.  It's not elevated much, so it feels like you're going along the water.

Apparently, parts of the bridge can be opened to permit ships to pass through, and one had wanted to pass through today, so there were quite a few delays on the line.

Just before the beach, the line splits into two, with the 'A' going east and a shuttle 'S' going west.  I went east to 44th St, walked back westwards to 98th St and got the shuttle back to the junctiona and then an 'A' back to Penn Station.

There are a lot of breakwaters like this all along the beach.

They all featured a few signs saying "Keep Off Jetty"  but there were still some people poj each one.  Usually, it would be people fishing, but at one, there was a whole group of children on the rocks.

You can just ahout see Manhattan in the distance  looking westwards along the beach.

It wasn't very long ago that I was able to paddle in the Pacific Ocean and now was able to do the same in the Atlantic Ocean.

By the time I had decided to return back to Manhattan, schools had finished for the day, so the shuttle train back to Broad Channel was packed with a schoolchildren.

 

Since the signage at Penn Station is terrible, I wanted to make sure I knew exactly which entrance and where I would have to go with all my luggage later on.

Having done that, I decided to eat at a steakhouse, which was very expensive, but the food was nice.  The restaurant is part of the whole stack of venues in the same place.  There's Penn Station at the bottom, underground, with another level of restaurants and entrances for the station on the "ground floor", with Madison Square Garden arena on top of it all.

I had the slab bacon to start, which was large cube shapes of gammon, with maple syrup sauce.  My server suggested black pepper improved the taste too, and I think it did too.  The filet mignon was the most expensive part, but was done as it should have been.  I just had a cookie and coffee for dessert and they came to $15 in total as well.

San Diego Padres @ New York Mets (game 2)

The final game of my holiday was this Wednesday evening game.

This time, I arrived  just as the game was getting underway, although I didn't get to my seat until the bottom of the 1st inning, as it took several minutes to get up to the Excelsior Level in the lift and then queue to buy a bottle of water.

I took my hat and coat - which turned out to be a waste of effort, because it was warm throughout and no sign of the drizzle that had been lingering most of the day.  

Today, there were plenty of innings with zero or one run scored - until Manny Machado hit a grand slam for the Padres in the middle innings.  The Mets managed to keep it tight and were gradually eroding the lead one run at a time, but in the end fell short and lost the game 7-4.

As a reward for being at the game where the three million attendance mark was passed, I should be receiving an email containing a discount voucher for a game next year.  It will be interesting to see what restrictions it might have.

After the game, I remembered that you have to go to the wrong platform at the subway station!  For a lot of its length, the 7 line has three tracks: updown, downtown and then an express line whose direction changes depending on the time of day.  If you go to the signposted platform for downtown-bound trains, you get stuck on a local (all stations) train, but if you go to the uptown platform, you have access to the express line's platform.  Not only that, but they run a "super-express" service that calls at even fewer stations than a normal express service.  It only takes 25 minutes to get you back to Times Square in Manhattan, whereas it took 40 on the local train, as there were only 3 out of the dozen or so stops in Queens.

Final full day

Today, I had planned on going to the beach for a relaxing day on Long Island. 

However, it is raining.  It may also be raining for tonight's game, which would be a nuisance, as obviously, I wouldn't be able to attend a rescheduled matchup - and it would be rescheduled, because the Mets are in a tight race for the final wildcard spot, and the Padres are in the wildcard race too, although more comfortably off for now.

There's not a lot to do except update my blog and go for lunch before heading up to Citi Field this evening.

I found that I'm staying literally around the corner  from my company's New York office.  That's after finding I was a stone's throw away from our Chicago office earlier in my holiday.

The office even has the company name lit up on the side multiple times, in big purple letters! 

San Diego Padres @ New York Mets (game 1)

This was a strange game.  As I was a little late, having forgotten that I had a ticket for tonight's game, I missed the first 2 and a half innings, arriving during the bottom of the 3rd.  It could have been worse, but I asked Google Maps how long it would take from my hotel to the stadium and it said only 36 minutes, and it was about right - the subway entrance for the 7 line is very near my hotel.

On the down side, this game finished 8-3 in favour of the hometown Mets, but I only saw 1 of those runs score, as the Mets scored 5 in the first inning and 2 in the second.

I was on the Excelsior level, which is not the top Hyundai Club section, which I've been in before and is extremely nice and, when the Mets are competitive and able to sell it out, very expensive.  We still have lots of comfy chairs and tables to sit at around the concourse, which makes it a very pleasant place to come.

I was still feeling a bit tired, so I just had some chicken tenders to eat for my "lunch".

It was very noisy - there was unnecessary music between each pitch it seemed, and it wasn't really relevant to the action.

In the end, the part of the game I saw had some good pitching and good defence, although the Mets catcher suffered a nasty-looking injury when he was hit by a pitch on his hand and he left the game.

A Mets victory is the last thing the Giants need, unfortunately, so I'd like the Padres to knock them off tonight if possible - and I might get a commemorative gift if there are more than about 26,000 people on Wednesday, as it'll push the season total attendance to over 3 million.

New York arrival

I didn't sleep all that much on the flight, although it was maybe a couple of hours, and I did sleep through breakfast and coffee, which was irritating, as I was woken up to get my seat back upright for landing.

I had a breakfast at a place in the airport terminal before exiting, as most of the food places are on the airside of security.  I've checked into my hotel, but check-in only starts at 3pm, so that's 7 hours after landing.

I got to New York Penn station at about 11.30am, and then walked around the train hall wondering whether to buy lunch or not and then decided to just go up to the hotel anyway and see if I could at least drop my bags off, as I didn't want to be lugging them around for hours, and I was still a bit tired.

I got to the hotel about 1pm, as it's only a few blocks away from Penn Station, so I'd walked up there.  Then it got a bit strange, because I was informed that my room wasn't "available" until 3pm, although I could pay $50 for an early check-in, because the room was ready.

The guy at the check-in desk said that he couldn't waive the fee, but he could for new Hilton Honors signups, so he suggested that if I had another email address not associated with my HH account already, I could "sign up" and then he could let me into the room straight away, and then he said I could close the second account after I'd left.

So I now have a second HH account with my work email address.  I'm wondering whether this is a thing or whether he's on an incentive to sign up as many new members as possible!

The view from my room (taken the next morning) is OK - I had paid extra for a city view, so I'm on the 30th floor, just one below the top.

I wasn't sure whether I'd stayed here before, but now I'm sure that I have, as I remember the breakfast room and the three lifts, which always take an age to service all the floors, as there are so many of them, even though there's only half a dozen rooms on each floor.

As soon as I got in I decided to try to catch up on some sleep, and woke up a few hours later, only then realising that I was still thinking it was Monday, when in fact it was Tuesday, so I had a game to go to which was due to start in 5 minutes time!

Proper sunset

Using the Waymo to get to the wharf was worthwhile, because it got me there before the sun had finished setting.

This is a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, taking from Pier 39, when the sky was at its reddest.

It does look very red in the photo, but it was really that colour.

There are so many good viewpoints, that you can find a clear spot for photos, although it was quite windy which made it chilly, even with my coat on. 

As night fell, the seals were swimming around in the water and the sealions were being quite noisy.  By this time, it was getting quite tricky to see them, though.

I didn't eat anything at the pier tonight, as I'd only just had my dinner.  I tried a crepe a few days ago and that was quite nice, although I wish they'd supply a knife and not just a fork, because it was awkward trying to cut it with a side of a fork.  Perhaps you're supposed to use your hands.

After a while, I decided to get the cable car back to my hotel to pick up my baggage and head to the airport.

At the cable car stop, I met some German tourists who were trying to work out the ticket machine and asked me for help.

It's not surprising, because I found it hard to operate the ticket machine too - I never buy single cable car tickets, as I  always buy a Muni passport instead ($47 for a week, for as many rides on buses, trains, streetcards or cable cars as you want, compared to $9 for a single trip on a cable car!)

Only the lady really spoke much English at all, so they were in luck, as I was able to speak with them in German to explain it, for which they were very grateful, and they told me they were flying home tomorrow and that they'd enjoyed their time in San Francisco, but wanted to ride the cable car before leaving.

The trip to airport took about half an hour, so I was at the airport in plenty of time, although I've never been on a BART that went backwards - as we got to the junction for the airport, it seems that we were on the wrong track and had to reverse a bit to let the ongoing train switch to the other track - since it was on an incline, it felt like the driver had just left the brake off to let us drift backwards for a bit! 

There weren't many more flights due to leave after mine, so the airport was less busy than usual.

We took off over San Francisco, and then turned east for the overnight trip to New York.

Brand-new experience

EPIC Steak has a great spot next to the waterfront  on the Embarcadero right next to Folsom station, although I walked down from the Ferry Building rather than take the metro one stop along.

My table was on the patio outside next to the promenade, so I was able to watch the sunset on the Bay Bridge that takes the road over the Oakland.  I have sometimes stayed in Oakland as it used to be much cheaper, but there was very little difference in the price when I booked this year, so I stayed in San Francisco for the convenience.  My usual hotel is probably in this photograph!

It's hard to find anything in San Francisco that's completely new to do, but this evening I managed it.

After the disappointment of the previous evening's fog-obscured sunset, I wanted to travel up to Pier 39 again and watch the sun going down, but I would have been too late going on the metro and then a streetcar, so I decided to summon a taxi instead using Waymo.  I installed their app last year and configured it with all the payment details, but never actually used it.  I'd asked for a quote for a journey back from the seaside on the day I was late back for the game, but the quote was ridiculously high (over $50 for a 3 mile journey and I'd have had to wait 20 minutes anyway!)

It's one of these new-fangled taxis that goes on its own, without needing a person to drive it.  Here's a short clip of the journey along the Embarcadero, just getting to the Ferry Building which is the large white building on the right-hand side (reduced in quality to stop it being too large): 

 

It didn't take very long to get up to the Pier, although it did cost $13.25 but you get the quote before you accept the ride.

Final day in San Francisco

Monday was my final day in San Francisco, but I'd chosen the latest flight that I could for my onward journey to New York: 11.25pm!

The hotel has a large luggage storage area, so I was able to leave my main bag there and kept my backpack with me all day, although I wished afterwards that I'd left that there too as it was fairly heavy.

I had decided to go across to Sausalito to wander around there for a bit - I've been before, but it's a lot quieter over there and nicer to walk around.

The ferry only costs $8.25 and leaves from the main Ferry Building which is at the end of Market Street in the main port.

However, since I went on the Muni metro up to the ferry building, I got a further 50 cent discount as it counted as a transfer - I had to pay the full fare on the way back!

Unlike Sunday evening, today was a glorious day and much warmer.  I'd decided to keep the bag so that I could carry my coat with me as I expected it to be cold on the ferries, but in the end, it wasn't cold at all - in fact, the cool breeze was a relief from the heat.

The boardwalk next to Sausalito's main marina

There are ferries to all sorts of places, and the ferry building is a lovely place full of lunchtime eateries and with an old-style departure boards showing which gate of the 7 each departure was using.

I was quite intrigued to see some departures marked as "Alameda Seaplane" as I didn't think that seaplanes were all that common any more, particularly in built-up areas, and I hadn't noticed any seaplanes.

It was disappointing: that's just the name of the lagoon in Alameda where the ferry, a normal catamaran, sails to.

 

I walked up and down the main seafront road which had quite a few ice cream shops and souvenir shops.

I had dinner booked for EPIC Steak back in San Francisco, just down from the ferry building, and so I only wanted a light lunch, somewhere cool to sit out of the sun for a bit as it was so hot and a loo.  So I had a salad at a bar, and even that salad was the size of a main course so I didn't want to eat it all.

It was nice enough to sit and look out over the bay for a while until the return sailing was due, as they are not all that frequent.

The sailing back gives you the best way of taking photos of the San Francisco skyline.

I had plenty of time once I got back to San Francisco to sit in the shade and wait for my dinner reservation, which wasn't until 5.30pm.  I had wondered about just going down there a little early, but when I did eventually go down there, it was packed, so it wouldn't have been any use, 

Foggy sunset

After the game on Sunday afternoon, I walked all the way along the Embarcadero up to Fisherman's Wharf, with dinner booked at McCormick & Kuleto's for 7.15pm as that would mean I could sit and watch the beautiful sunset whilst eating.

Despite the sunny day it had been, the fog rolled in in the late afternoon.

So instead of a glorious sunset, it was mostly grey.

It wasn't actually cold like it can be when that happens, but it was quite disappointing all the same.

I'm sure I've had the same waitress at M&K before - Larissa is from somewhere in eastern Europe, and I remember her because she looks so much like Annette Badland.

I did appreciate the seating arrangements though. Usually, as a single diner, I'm placed in the second row of tables, slightly raised, but back from the window to allow the better views for the groups of 4 or more.  However, this time, they had opened up the private dining room area so that everybody could have a table by the window.

It's just a shame about the fog.

After dinner, I went around the corner to the Ghirardelli chocolate shop for dessert instead of having any of the restaurant's puddings.

They appear to have learnt to not shut up shop too early: they seem to continue to be open and serving their whole range of sundaes until midnight now, instead of packing up at 10pm.  

It was really busy, even later in the evening, with very few empty tables - and they have quite a lot of tables available!

After that, it was starting to get a bit colder and late, so I went back to my hotel on the cable car.

The cable car I rode in - at Powell St

Since it was chilly, I decided I wanted to sit inside.

It is irritating that they don't run the cable cars more frequently than they do later in the evenings.  We were standing around for half an hour for it to run.

I'm sure they'd sell more tickets if they could take more people - at $9 a journey that could be quite a money spinner. 

It was really packed, which was quite uncomfortable really, and for all of us sitting inside, you couldn't see the views because of all the people standing in front of you.

Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants (game 3)

This was the final game of a three-game series between the Giants and Dodgers, and the final game of the season here between the teams, with a four-game series still to come next weekend in Los Angeles.

This was a day game, which was a bit irritating, because it clashes with all the NFL games that are going on today.

As with the previous day game on my holiday, I had made sure that I was on the first base side so that I wouldn't be in the sun.

The views from the club level and the top deck were spectacular as usual - of course the view is better during the day time as you can see so much more.

This was a much tighter game with more innings where just 1 run was scored instead of the multiple run innings that were common in the previous two games.

Until Los Angeles scored 4 in the 5th inning, which proved to be enough, and they kept adding a run here and there and the Giants only scored one more to make the final score 10-2

Shohei Ohtani at the plate preparing to hit

 

Unfortunately, I didn't see Shohei Ohtani hit home run #50 or to pitch, despite seeing 3 Dodger games in a row.

Seeing as I have to plan games so far in advance, it is just luck which starters are up in the pitching rotation for the games.  Yesterday, it was Clayton Kershaw who has been problematic for San Francisco, but got hit around.  Today it was Tyler Glasnow, who didn't struggle at all.

The Dodgers took the series 2-1 which was a shame as San Francisco are just half a game back in the race of for the final wildcard spot, with the Mets in freefall and the Giants hot recent run.

The key for San Francisco is going to be to beat Arizona in the first part of next week, then at least split 2-2 with the Dodgers at their place and then beat St Louis and Colorado at home for a strong finish. 

Outside of the stadium after the game, something that started within the past couple of years is having a row of hot dog vendors with their little carts.  One modern tech advance is that they can use their mobile phones to easily accept credit card payments from chip+pin cards.  The one other time I tried one a couple of years back, I had to dig around for some actual cash to pay with.

Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants (game 2)

This was also an evening game, although it started just after 6pm, which is an hour earlier than yesterday.

Unfortunately, I missed the very start of this game, as it took far longer to get back from the beach than I had expected. 

That was a shame, because there was a lot of action in the first inning, with the Dodgers scoring one, but San Francisco scoring another 4 in response to lead 4-1 after one inning.

However, despite having our current star pitcher going, Logan Webb was unable to stop the Dodgers scoring again, and again in the following innings and it ended up as a quite one-sided scoreline in the end, as the Giants couldn't score enough to keep up.

The brightest moment was the huge cheer for 49ers legend Joe Montana who was in attendance tonight, as part of the Giants' "49ers day" celebration.

It was somewhat appropriate that the final 13-7 scoreline more resembled an NFL scoreline than an MLB one.
 

Ocean Beach

Today I decided to visit Golden Gate Park and the beach to the west of San Francisco.

I start at the park and was intending to go into the botanic gardens for a look around, but it was packed with people - possibly because it was such a nice day and was a Saturday and there was an event on in the park.

They also wanted quite a lot of money to get in, so I didn't go in, but walked around the park instead.

There are numerous trails around that you can follow, although the map doesn't indicate height very well.

Some of the paths were up incredibly steep hills, whereas others just went around the hills.

There is a lake in this park, and there are lots of pedal boats and kayaks on it that people hire to go around, and it's not just one large area of water, more like a circular river around a central island, with bridges at the north and south end to get onto it.

It does seem to be a closed water system - it looks like the entire thing has been built, because this is in the highest part of the park - and the water hasn't all drained away down the hills!

I was taking photos of the river and thinking what a strange colour is was when somebody walked by and said exactly the same thing! 

It was remarkably green.

(And it wasn't part of a "half way to St Patrick's Day" thing either - that's a thing, particular in Chicago, that some Americans like to celebrate around 17th September!)

After getting half way through the park, I decided to leave and catch a bus most of the rest of the way to the coast.

I had intended to walk all the way down from Judah St (where the N line ends) to the San Francisco Zoo near Taraval St (where the L line ends) to get the light rail train back, but in the end I had to give up due to time constraints as I needed to get back to my hotel to change and get down to the ballpark for a 6.05pm start.

The beach doesn't appear to have changed.

 Not very busy, even though it was a Saturday, but quite windy and there were some kite fliers and windsurfers 

Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants (game 1)

Friday night's game was the first game of a 3-game series between LA and SF.  Although Los Angeles is almost certainly going to win the division, these games are really important for san Francisco as they chase for the last wild card spot in the playoffs.

It's also my first change to see the Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani, the superstar player frm Japan, who is a two-way player: he pitches at a high level and is an excellent hitter as well.  Since the National League adopted the Designated Hitter - that means that there is a batter who hits instead of the pitcher - the league also modified the rules to permit Ohtani to hit and pitch in the same game but importantly, to continue to hit after being removed as a pitcher, which wouldn't normally have been allowed.

This is the first game I've been to this year where it's been a sell-out and everybody turned up.  The attendance was over 40,000 which is double what any previous game has had. 

Justin Verlander started this game for San Francisco and was as reliable as you could ever want, and kept Ohtani quiet.  He just rolled along like last time in St Louis, although he did give up four hits, and just one run, over seven innings.  San Francisco only managed to score one in return, however, as Dodger pitcher Yamamoto also went 7 innings giving up one run.

So it went to extra innings and in the 10th inning, a superb defensive play by McCray throwing out a runner at 3rd base from right field to eliminate the automatic baserunner and keep Los Angeles off the scoreboard.

Then the bottom of the 10th inning become increasing exciting as the Giants got the winning run to 3rd base, and then had the bases loaded for catcher Patrick Bailey, who doesn't have great offensive numbers this year, but he swung his bat hard and managed to hit a home run over the left field wall for a walk-off grand slam to win the game 5-1.  

 After the game, the stands were shaking with all the people jumping up and down in celebration.

Then after 15 minutes or so, we had the Friday post-game fireware  It always helps to have had a home win before the fireworks, and although the fireworks weren't as good as last Friday's in St Louis, they were quite good.

 

Fisherman's Wharf

I went to Fisherman's Wharf again today for lunch at Boudin Bakery, as that also has nice views over the bay.

I went up there in one of the historic streetcars, because the queues for the cable car during the day are always very long and you could end up waiting over half an hour for a ride there. 

I like that the smaller tables, for one or two people, are lined up along the window, so you get the best of the view, although it's daytime, so no sunset, as the game is this evening.

There is some work to cleanup some of the old industrial damage to the seabed i the bay, so the view was dominated by a digger on a barge that was putting some of the cleaned-up boulders back into the water. 

There are lots of other eateries along Pier 39, along with all the gift shops.

There are a lot of different paths around all the shops leading to different viewing areas, so there are plenty of places to take photographs from.

 

There are a number of marinas around the whole coastline, with many expensive-looking boats.

At the end of the day, I returned back to my hotel using the cable car from the wharf back to Powell St.

My hotel is one block away from the cable car end, so it's very convenient. 

 

Franciscan Crab

On Thursday evening, I made my first trip up to Fisherman's Wharf for dinner.

The sealions were in residence at Pier 39, drawing a crowd of onlookers.

The views from the Franciscan Crab are good, although I'm keeping the best sunset view for Sunday evening.

It is a shame that one of the two restaurant spots at the end of Pier 39 remains unoccupied, as it was empty last year too, but it's in a prime spot.  The other is now an all-you-can-eat bar, which is a shame.

The weather has been remarkably consistent: morning fog eventually giving way to a sunny day, then a clear evening. 

I considered going on a 2 hour sunset cruise, but the price was eye-wateringly large for one of them - well over $100 - and the other that was half the price was already full.

So here's a picture of the cruise leaving instead!

Lake Merritt

I'd read some good reviews of the park at Lake Merritt across in Oakland, so today, I decided to visit it and follow the trail around the lake.

Since it's in Oakland, I had to use BART to get there, but bizarrely, I don't seem to have been charged for the journey, with the fare gates displaying "Pass Accepted", which can only be the MUNI passport that I've got, but which isn't usually valid.  It's possible that it just hasn't come through to my card yet, but the balance has not changed.

It doesn't take that long to get there, though.

It was just a lake with a paved path around the edge, but there's nothing really there apart from the lake, which isn't much.   The lake is surrounded by office blocks.

The best part of it was the garden on the north side of the lake which is maintained by students.

There were some nice dahlias in particularly.  There was quite a wide range of different areas.

The dahlias were the most colourful, although there were some dry gardens that were full of succulent plants.

The roses and camellias were past their best, and there was even a section full of bonsai although that was closed when I was there.

There was a nice water garden too.

I had expected there to be a lot more to this given the website advertising it.  It wasn't nearly as exciting as Forest Park, though. 

After I got back, I went to the Franciscan Crab for dinner up on Fisherman's Wharf.  This year, I was able to pay by just tapping my card on their reader, which is a great improvement on last year's shenanigans involving photocopying passports and credit cards!

One reason for going there was to watch the sunset, although I was set back from the window a bit, so couldn't see it all that well, but it was still pretty.