sightseeing Keyword
The Rock
I was pretty excited to see Alcatraz and it didn’t disappoint. Sitting in the fog of the bay Alcatraz Island has had a long and interesting history. The limestone island was first used as the bedrock for a lighthouse, which is now the oldest lighthouse on the west coast and from there it has been a military installation, site of Indian rights protests and most (in)famously a prison.
Alcatraz’s prison history dates back to around 1861 where it was used a military prison. It quickly grew in population but it wasn’t until 1934 that the island became the Alcatraz we all know. It remained operation as a prison hosting some of the States most notorious criminals for 29 years.
Due to its geographics and the technology used in the prison Alcatraz was considered inescapable and it is easy to see why. The island sits tantalisingly close to the mainland but the water is freezing and currents churn the bay constantly. The buildings are imposing and there isn’t many places to hide outside the prison walls.
I spent around 3 hours on the island, listening to the audio tour and checking out the ruins of the prison. I took way too many photos but I loved the old run down buildings. There’s only one way to get to the island, Alcatraz Cruises. For $26 you get your ferry there and back, and the audio tour. My time on the Rock was worth every penny.
San Francisco
It is strange to think that San Francisco had a population of only 1,000 people when the gold rush hit. The search for riches caused the number of residents of the bay to swell quickly to 25,000 in just one year. It must have been a crazy time, how ever San Fran’s history stretches as far back as 3000BC when local Cali Indians once called the area home before being displaced in the 1700′s by the Spanish. Now home to around 800,000 in the metro and 8,000,000 in the surrounding ‘burbs San Fran is a buzzing city.
The entire metropolis is quite beautiful and new, mainly due to the great fire of 1906. Over four hundred thousand San Franciscan’s were left homeless after an earthquake levelled buildings and ruptured gas lines causing massive devastation. Today the town is full of life and history. Its famous trams rumble through the city and the streets are teaming with tourists. Along the port restaurants and museums line the piers. Out to the west in the suburbs is Haight Ashbury, a very alternative neighbourhood with a cool scene. Grungy, dirty bars and music stores run up and down the main street and bums and hippies sit on side walks calling for donations towards cannabis research.
On Sunday Chinatown hosted a party, filling the streets with parades, food and music. The Chinatown in San Francisco is one of the oldest in the entire USA and it is huge, but difficult to find nice cheaps eat’s in. A few bars are scattered through the streets of Chinatown, and around the city in general but the best I found was The Utah. It sits on the corner of 4th and Bryant and is a great venue with music almost every night and an awesome vibe. The locals are friendly and the bar staff fun and tough.
In the evenings the fog that during the day contains itself to the bay creeps into the city turning it into a frigid yet beautiful place. It wafts into the streets and blows a cooling breath over the entire metropolis. It is so thick you can feel it dusting your face with a light mist.
I got to catch up with a couple of mates in San Francisco. Jenn, who kindly put me up for a few nights and Emmett who took me around the city on Monday and to Fishermans wharf in the evening. I had a great time here and I’ll be back for one last drink before flying to Hawaii in about a week. But right now I am due to catch a flight to Vegas.
Golden Gate Bridge
It’s in that pea soup somewhere. You just gotta imagine it’s there. For all I know the cars were just falling off the edge into bay.
This was the best view I got of the famous Golden Gate Bridge that spans the opening of the San Francisco bay to the ocean. Its construction was finished in 1937 and at the time was the longest suspension bridge in the world. The orange colour that I should have seen if there wasn’t the famous San Fran fog in the way was actually the original colour of the sealant, but it was decided that the bridge would look better staying orange rather than boring old steel grey and so a top coat of Internation Orange was applied.
I was really looking forward to seeing this landmark, but as luck would have it I didn’t get to. I went on a Sunday, catching the very easy 76 bus to Fort Point, and after being disappointed with the lack of view tried again the next day but the 76 doesn’t run so I had to change bus three times to get there just to be disappointed yet again.
Oh well, you win some, you lose some.
Seattle
People look at me strange sometimes when I say I love the states, but damn it: it’s true. I have had nothing but good experiences here. The people are lovely, and everyone that I have met from the states, save a few obnoxious hangover exacerbating types, have been great, honest, confident and friendly. So it was nice to step off the boat from Victoria to be greeted by Seattle on a warm October afternoon.
Seattle, home of Grunge music, dot com darlings Amazon, Boeing and other cool businesses, is a beautiful city. Teeming with life and coffee shops the city stretches out from the west coast, up and over it’s many hills. I am staying in Capital Hill, a pretty cool district with some interesting characters and great nightlife.
I haven’t done all that much exploring as yet, haven’t even checked out the Space Needle, but I plan to remedy this after Penny Arcade Expo is all done. I did get a moment to wander around downtown though, where I met some locals in a bar who graciously offered to take me bar hopping around the town. As it was midday this was great as I got to see and take note of some cool bars to check out later. I also had a bit of a gander at the famous Pike Place Markets, but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with crowds so I just stuck my head in for a bit of a sticky beak.
I got to go to “The Central” on my impromptu little tour. This bar is pretty famous for having rock 365 nights of the year and has played host to some of the greatest bands ever when they were just starting out. They also have some pretty awesome graffiti in the toilets. “The New Orleans” on the other hand had the creepiest graffiti in theirs, with thousands of little faces staring you down while trying to do a slash. Damn weird.
I am liking Seattle. I can’t wait to see more of the town.
Quebec
Prague was in my opinion the most beautiful city in Europe. It was like a fairy tale and I didn’t think I would find a city that could top it in the beauty stakes. That was until I found Quebec.
Quebec (or Quebec City), the capital of the Quebec Province is quite a small town with a population of around a million. Its’ skyline dominated by the Old Town built high on the hill in a location advantageous to defence. It is a walled city, in fact the only walled city north of Mexico on this continent. Quebec is clean, beautiful and interesting. While it lacks the nightlife of say Montreal, what little it does have is pretty rocking.
I had a great time walking all over Quebec. I spent the majority of my time in the Old Town, or down at the port. I rested my weary feet in fountains and bathed myself in the blazing sun. At night I couldn’t stop staring at the buildings and streets that glowed with lighting that seemed straight out of a movie.
At the moment the city is hosting it’s Summer Festival with Cirque de Soleil for free almost every night and the “Moulin a Image” a huge multimedia presentation across a ridonkulously big screen (actually the side of a massive silo). Thousands of people flood into the city each night to see either of these two spectacles and to eat at the hundreds of restaurants and cafes that lie scattered through the old town.
On top of all this the Hostel I stayed in, located in downtown was very cool. Totally relaxed, open and friendly with our hosts Pierre and Skippy, the little Jack Russell that would come in and sticky beak in on the rooms. It was a small hostel though, and the 2 toilets and showers sometimes struggled to cope with the demand. I am just glad that I am an early riser and beat the rush.
I only had 3 days in Quebec and there were a few things I would have liked to see that I missed out on. I could have spent a long time just soaking up the atmosphere. Oh well, just means I will have to go back.
CN Tower
I’ve always wondered what in the human condition triggers this desire to “stand on the shoulders of giants”. To get up high, find a new perspective. It seems a universal thing. All over the world there are observation towers in skyscrapers, lookout points from mountains. We seek grand views. Do people yearn to rise above their lot, or do they wish to witness their insignificance first hand? I can not tell. One thing I know is, the CN Tower, once the tallest free standing structure on land in the world (now only bested by the still incomplete Burj Dubai), is a magnet for people seeking to look down on the world that they occupy.
Construction of the Tower was completed in 1976. The tower rises 553.33 meters over the Toronto Skyline and is quite easy to see on the horizon from Niagara nearly 200km’s away. The tower features two main observation decks, a glass floor, a restaurant and other touristy attractions. I spent around 2 hours up the tower, most of which was spent waiting in line. Looking out over the land at such a great height is pretty amazing. Watching firetrucks the size of my thumb nail scoot around the city was cool. The view does provide a change in perspective. The CN Tower is also probably the last “big” thing I will climb on my adventure, which is rapidly approaching its end, both in time left and amount of funds. *gulp*
New York, New York
So I’ve been in the States for around 3 days now. Arriving in JFK airport I spent around a hour trying to find an Internet Cafe to print out my bus pass so I could leave the terminal. I didn’t really feel like I was in NYC until our bus hit the Van Wyck. Seeing that sign made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. As we crested a hill the Manhattan Skyline appeared and I went all gooey.
In the short amount of time I have been here so far I’ve seen heaps of Manhattan, I’ve caught the Statten Island Ferry, visited cool bars, watched Hip Hop Open Mike till 4am, had an awesome burger in downtown, seen the WTC site, been to the Chrysler, Empire State and Rockerfeller buildings, jumped in Grand Central Station and wandered the Natural History Museum. Best of all though is seeing Tom’s Restaraunt, the diner from Seinfeld. Major life goal completed with one short subway ride.
I’ll be heading into Central Park today for a bit of a walk. I still have so much to see but I know one thing for sure. New York is my kind of place.