Our hotel is really nice, right on the seafront in Waikiki and we have a baloncy overlooking the beach. Weather is nice and warm though there is some strong winds. Though Hawaii seems much more built up and busy than we imagined it to be.
Went out for a wander along the beach and around the shops. Had some dinner at a mexican restaurant where the servings were huge, before heading back to our hotel for a bit of an early jet lagged night.
We walked to the waterfront and along until we came to the bottom of Coit's tower which is a tower on top of a small hill which overlooks the bay. We climbed up what seemed like hundreds of steps to the top to enjoy the great views of the bay and the golden gate bridge. The inside of the tower had some interesting murals painted inside it.
We then headed back down the hill(down was much easier than up!) to Fisherman's wharf where we had clam chowder for lunch by the waterside. Had a look round the rest of Fisherman's wharf and saw some sea lions which were there. We thought about doing the Alcatraz tour, but in the end decided that we would give it a miss.
We then caught a bus towards the Mission district of the city. Once there we stopped back in at the car hire place where we had dropped off the car as we had realised that we had left Liz's sunglasses behind in the car. They were very friendly, but unfortunately they hadn't found them. We carried on into the mission district and had a look at Mission Delores, one of the few buildings which survived the 1906 earthquake and fire. It is one of the original missions built by the Spanish.
Next stop was Safeway's to take advantage of my newly aquired discount card and buy the evening's dinner. We headed back to our hostel and dropped off our food before heading off to Union Square to have a look round the shops to see if we could find some new sunglasses. Looked round a few shops and didn't seem to be getting on very well; all the sunglasses were very expensive. Luckily we found a shop called Ross which is very similar to the TK Maxx shop which we have in the UK. They have designer labels at cut down prices. Presumably they are last season's I guess. Here we found some sunglasses which Liz liked at a quarter of the rrp!
Then it was back to the hostel for dinner and an early night ready for our early morning departure for Hawawii the next day.
So we started the day, apart from sending emails to try and get our pay, by having a bagel breakfast at the hostel. Then we set off on our adventures, our first stop was at the Wells Fargo History Museum. We made our way there using the cable car, these are really something, you hop on when the cable car stops and then hang on somewhere whilst it goes up and down the hills of San Francisco. It's amazing that these cars have no internal power they just use the cable which runs under the street to either hang onto to move along or let go of to stop.
After the museum we caught another cable car to the ferry building. Here we saw the biggest sea gull I have ever seen, as well as nice views across the bay. We then started to head towards the Wicked theatre to try again at the ticket lottery for the matinee performance. It was a fair walk but gave us chance to see some of San Francisco on foot. It also allowed us to discover the heart of the shopping area, which we explored later! (Really I explored and Adam followed trying not to look too fed up!) So back at Wicked I was sure we would win as there were less people than last night, so we waited with anticipation as the names were drawn, each time I imagined the lady calling out my name, but she never did. Well we tried to be grateful as at least now we had the afternoon to explore the city some more. We had a quick lunch in Del Taco, a mexican fast food chain, before looking round a few shops. We found a huge Macys store.
We then got back on another cable car to head for the Cable Car Museum. This was pretty interesting and you could see the cables being pulled round. Then we went down to Fishermand Wharf and got our first proper sighting of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.
After a walk around it was that time of day again, the Wicked lottery for the evening performance, surely we would win this time, 3rd time luncky and all! But no, our names weren't called again. However we had decided that this time we would queue after the lottery to purchase extreme limited view tickets. They offer these tickets for sale after the lottery each day so we knew what to expect so Adam positioned him self near the start of the queue, however tonight they changed where the queue should be so loads of people got in front of Ad. We waited in line for what seemed like ages as people bought their tickets. As we got to the front an usher told us that there was only single seats left so we wouldn't be able to sit together. The couple in front of us left, so we were next. We decided as long as we weren't miles away from each other we'd go for it. However to our surprise the cashier sold us tickets next to each other. At last we had tickets to see Wicked!
Had a Burger King dinner and then went to the library and read some magazines while we waited till the doors opened for the show. The seats were brilliant, alright you couldn't see the whole stage but you didn't miss any of the main story line, just sometimes you couldn't see all the dancers. It was brilliant, so now I have Wicked songs going round and round my head. A great end to another day. Not sure what we'll do tomorrow now we don't need to go to the Wicked lottery!
Then contiued the walk to our hostel, the area seemed to change very quickly from the clean streets of the civic centre to a rather more run down neighbourhood. There seemed to be a lot of homeless people about and we wondered a bit about our choice of hostel. Arrived at our hostel and checked in fine, the hostel itself was very nice and the area directly outside it seemed fine. We also picked up an information leaflet which mentioned the large number of homeless people in the neighourhood to the east and recommended routes to walk to avoid them. Not great but the recommended routes are a lot better.
We thought we would go and have a look at the Golden Gate Bridge. So asked at the hostel about how to get there and they told us what buses to catch. What we didn't ask and what the hostel didn't offer up was how long it would take... So we got on the first bus no problem, except that it was very busy and stopped at every single stop along the route. We also discovered about half way on our journey that the map which the hostel had given us had a rather unusual scale. The city centre was at one scale then on the same map the outling suburbs to the west were on a very different scale. Which meant that when it looked like we had travelled about half the distance on the map we were probably only a quarter of the way and it had already taken ages! When we got to the stop where we needed to change buses we decided that a change in plan was needed if we were going to make it back in time for the ticket lottery. So instead of catching the bus North to the Golden Gate Bridge we took it South instead to the Golden Gate park, which would leave us just one more bus journey away from getting back to the theatre, had a brief walk through the botanical gardens, before catching a third bus back towards the city. However this bus was a little different to the previous two. Firstly it wasn't listed on our bus route map and it was called a 'culture route'. Secondly it was nearly empty, didn't stop all the time and was very fast. Which meant the same distance which had taken us an hour on the first bus only took about ten minutes in the other direction! Which was lucky as otherwise we might have missed our lottery. Unfortunately we didn't win, so instead of watching a musical it was back to our hostel to have microwave noodles for dinner. Oh well there's always tomorrow's lottery...
First we walked to the downtown area of Santa Cruz, but we were way too early as most of the shops didn't open till at least 10 or some were even 11, it was 9.15! We found a book shop which was open though so had a look round there, which at least gave us chance to get out of the rain. Then walked back to our motel via the beach. Decided to take to the car for the rest of the day.
First we drove along the coastal road to the lighthouse and the statue of a surfer. Then we drove further up the coast to Davenport were we found a really nice beach which was completely empty, had a quick walk along there. We called in at a jam farm before heading back to Santa Cruz to get some lunch.
We went into Safeway to get some supplies for dinner and Adam joined their loyalty card scheme so we coould get money off! The lady didn't seem to care that we didn't even live in this country! Decided to have a Subway for lunch. We thought it would be a good idea to eat it at a beach, unfortunately we picked a beach which was miles away! I was starving by now and it seemed to take forever to get to the beach.
Had a quich drive around Capitola the next town south of Santa Cruz. Then went to the University of California Santa Cruz to have a look at their Aboretum. It was quite nice to walk around with all the different plants growing, and I guess perhaps at a different time of year it might be nicer with plants flowering. There was a New Zealand section which was the only area which had a fence round it, don't know what's special about New Zealand plants?
Then drove up to the Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. Lots of trees!
Headed back to Santa Cruz and went to play mini golf, not just any mini golf though, pirate themed mini golf! It was really fun and Adam narrowly won the round after a slow start. It wasn't actually such a narrow victory for Adam in the end, I was winning after 8 holes but then my beginners luck disappeared and for one of the holes I ended up using the maxium number of shots before the rules say you should give up on the hole! However for the last hole I got closest to the hole in one ending and won 2 tokens for the gaming aracde! So a small victory for me...
Then headed back to downtown to try and sell a book I had brought with me from home. It was a pretty big book and I was fed up of carrying it around so decided to see what I could get for it. I bought the book for £2.50 from a charity shop in West Bridgford so when they offered my $3.00 cash or $6.50 trade in I was pretty chuffed. (Adam had previously predicted I would get a dollar for it!) So I went for the trade which nows means I've still got a book to carry round, and the book I bought obviously cost more than the $6.50 I had to spend there, so I'm not completely sure if I won. Oh well at least I might enjoy this new book and actually read it!
Retired for the evening at the motel with a dvd from reception and our microwave lasagnes!
Started our drive up highway 1 towards Monterey and Santa Cruz. After a few miles we come to a sign which said elephant seal viewing. So we pulled over and there were loads of california seals, elephant seals and another type which I can't remember the name of! The elephant seals are huge and it's amazing to see them move their giant bodies around.
Highway 1 is a pretty narrow and windy but you get some amazing views which make the slightly hair rising ride worth while. Although I think we were concentrating so much on the road that we completly forgot to stop and take any pictures! So you'll just have to believe us that the views are great, or come here yourselves to see them, or I guess you could google it! It was pretty slow going but eventually we made it to the other end. Had a quick look round Monterey before carrying on to Santa Cruz. We found a really nice motel near the sea front, it even has free chocolate cookies!
