Saturday 7th September

I'm in San Francisco (I've been reliably informed by a local not to refer to it as San Fran) its too hot to sleep in my hungover condition and I don't expect Chris will be making an appearance anytime soon so I might as well write something; its basically that or vomiting...


We arrived here yesterday from Yosemite in the late afternoon approaching the Bay area on highway 580. As the road swoops down towards Oakland and the Bay bridge that crosses to San Francisco there was no sign of the prevailing fog; instead clear skies and bright sunlight scattered reflections across the bay and offered a clear view of the Golden gate bridge far off in the distance. For once our luck with traffic on this trip has changed for the better and within 20 minutes we were parked up and at our hostel: Adelaide. Handily placed just around the corner from Union Square in the heart of town.


After our basically carnivorous diet in the forests of Yosemite we decided it would be best to switch up to Japanese and by all accounts San Francisco has some of the best on offer outside of Japan. Fortuitously the hostel is just around the corner from Geary street where a host of sushi places lay in wait. Our appetites didn't allow much time for research and the first place we found was the one for us. The restaurant was called Katana-Ya and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a bowl of ramen soup, goyza or sushi rolls. Each and every mouthful was a divine and it was a welcome change not to be greeted with the now customary oversized portions that every restaurant here seems hell bent on providing. After dinner we did a little bar hopping where thanks in no small part to a friendly Las Vegan called Stuart prompting some rapid shot drinking we found ourselves pissed as newts and consequently in my now severly hungover condition.


Before I get to far down the road on San Francisco life; not that I have much more to tell than what's detailed above I should probably mention our final slice of Yosemite... After the exertions of the previous couple of days neither Chris or I was up for much more than a gentle stroll. But as luck would have it our last destination required no more than just that...


The Mariposa grove is located at the southern end of the park on route 41 and its where the biggest living things in the whole wide world reside... There are around one hundred sequoia trees there, some as much as 1,800 years old which means they we sprouting up form the ground back when civil war raged in the Roman empire and the Han dynasty in China fell. Chris seemed a little underwhelmed but for me the ambience of the grove was pretty special, in his defence we've seen so many mammoth natural wonders here in Yosemite its easy to begin to accept leviathan such as these as the norm. As we meandered through the forest I felt as though I was walking on the forest moon of Endor (sorry Star Wars reference), sadly there were no Ewok or Imperial stormtrooper sightings but these majestic red giants were good enough. On an even more trainspottery note I feel I should mention the biggest sequoia we saw: called the Grizzly Giant and although it wasn't the tallest one around (apparently the top came off at some point a couple hundred years ago?) its girth was absolutely mind blowing – around 35 feet in diameter I think?



I'm sorry to have to leave Yosemite and I'm sure I'll be back, I feel as though we managed to do a fair whack in the three days we spent here but talking with a Yosemite veteran called Jim who's been coming here every summer for around 40 years, it takes that long to exhaust all of the trails and activities on offer. Here's hoping I get closer to that feat!