Norah Jones - Those Sweet Words

Finally spring break is coming to an end and classes are gonna start this Monday. Not really excited to go back to studying but then I think it's still better than rotting at home. The holidays' been making me lazy and I need to start getting in high gear once classes start. I'm taking Biology 10 (Intro to Biology), Physics 4B (Electromagntism and Electricity n stuff like that I think), and History 17A (Early American History) this quarter. *shrug* This quarter, being my last quarter at De Anza college, is gonna be my most difficult quarter =/ I guess I like to leave the best for the last :P

So after being here in California for 2 years, I finally visited San Francisco, on Friday :P Left my house at 6.30am, spent $1.50 on a bus trip to the Sunnyvale Caltrain Station in, duh, Sunnyvale, and paid $4.25 for a train ticket to SF. Damn train trip's expensive but the trains are good. Nice seats, double deckered, certainly beats Malaysia's KTM service :P though the caltrain is the Malaysian equivalent of the KTM in terms of it's uses. Whole ride took about 2 hours.

Got off at the San Francisco station, paid another $1.25 for a bus ride down to Market Street then hopped on a cable car ($3.00) which took me down to Fisherman's Wharf. 3 bucks for the damn cable car ride. But it was worth it though. And mind you the cable car isn't like those usual cable cars that hang from a wire or cable. This one's on rails that are built into the roads, not suspended or anything. It was fun though, going up the hills and down and up the hills. Got a good view of the Bay on the way down. Oh and for people who like the thrill of riding down a roller coaster, the cable car ride has that sort of thrill when arriving at the top of a hill and going down the hill. Yes the hills in SF are STEEP! I doubt anyone who has faulty brakes in their car would wanna drive in Downtown San Francisco. The whole city is built on hills and there's steep hills every where. Don't bother driving a Kancil or Proton in SF. Won't even be able to go up some roads lol.

Once at Fisherman's Wharf, walked to Pier 39, looked around at some shops, then went to the end of the pier to look at the sea lions lazing around. For those of you who think pigs are lazy :P , sea lions are like uber lazy. There were like maybe 50 sea lions lying on wooden planks in the water and just .... lying there. There were of course a few active ones jumping into the water and crawling over the other resting sea lions' backs. The sounds that they make are kinda irritating too after a while, though fascinating at first =p *sigh* How I wished my darling Julia was there with me going around the wharf. =/ Once I got tired of the sea lions I went to Pier 45 ( I think ) and went inside a WWII submarine, the USS Pampanito. Yea it's a REAL WWII submarine, restored to it's original condition. I've always been fascinated with submarines and it was a real experience being in one, especially one that had some WWII action, sunk 7 or 6 Japanese ships, and also took some damage from depth charges. The corridors in the submarine could hardly have 2 people walking through at the same time, well, 2 people could walk past each other but they had to face their back against the wall n walk. To get to another part of the submarine you had to squeeze yourself through a small hole, yea like in the movies. I doubt I would have enjoyed working in a submarine, having to bend myself down all the time while going through sections of the sub and also looking out for overhead obstacles. If you're claustrophobic, don't ever think of stepping into a submarine. Lots of instruments and meters and confusing stuff inside too. Every section of the ship had little space, even the crew's quarters, which had about 20 bunk beds for 75-80 crew members. Interesting fact: a broom placed upside down at the top of the submarine signifies a 'clean sweep', meaning the sub sank all the enemy ships it was assigned to hit or encountered during it's mission. Submarine visit costed $7.00 by the way.

For lunch I went to Nonna's Rose Restaurant, a really good restaurant by the way. I spent like an hour looking for where to eat, as there were so many restaurants just right beside each other. There were stalls right in front of the restaurants too, each stall though different, had Dungeness Crabs displayed and offered for customers. Each Dungeness Crab I think cost about 20 bucks, and they price it by the weight and market price at that time. Dungeness Crabs are popular in SF. They are DELICIOUS! Lunch cost me 28 bucks, and I only ordered one item. Damn expensive, but daaaaaammmmmnn nice. I had Dungeness Crab Cioppino, and that was like the best dish I've ever remember having. Cioppino is the name of the person who created that recipe I think. It was a dish that had mussels, half a Dungeness crab, prawns, oysters, a bit of lobster, clams, all topped with a special broth. The broth's like those used in Chinese crab dishes, the tomato and mildy hot kind of broth, but this tasted different, a lot better. Arghhhhhhh thinking of it just makes me wanna go down there to have that meal again. I would definitely just drive down to eat that if I had a car.

Then I went to Ghiradelli (is that how u spell it?) Square, the place where the Ghiradelli Company made chocolates in the past. The Ghiradelli building is still there, just that it's not really a chocolate factory anymore and several other different shops occupied the building. For those of you who don't know, Ghiradelli chocolates are one of the best, and is famous in San Francisco ( duh, its made in SF ). I had a Chocolate Fudge ice cream in the Ghiradelli Chocolate and Soda Fountain shop. The ice cream was great but the fudge was a lil too sweet. Kinda reminded me of the time when Julia and I were having Baskin Robbins in Midvalley. All the time I was thinking how nice it would be if Julz would be right with me having fun. Inside the shop they had on display the machines and the chocolate making process. Quite interesting how they made chocolates, they melt the cocoa nibs using very high frictional heat to produce chocolate liquor (unsweetened chocolate). Then they mix the choc liquor with other ingredients, depending on what kind of chocolate they're making, using 2 hugeeeee granite rollers, and the product is then transferred to a mixer so that they don't solidify yet. They didn't show how they finally create the chocolate bars with the melted chocolate though.

Finally got enough of Fisherman's Wharf and I took the cable car back to Downtown San Francisco. Went to Union Square in SF, where all the branded designer shops are. Stuff like Luis Vuitton, Hilfiger, Burberry, Guess, Armani, Dior, etc etc. And there was a HUGE Nike store! 3 levels! Didn't buy anything in Downtown SF though, everything was like sooo expensive. Definitely a place I would wanna shop if I had all the money I want.

Spent about 2-3 hours walking around in Downtown SF. Went Chinatown too. My legs were like aching already while in Chinatown. You have NO idea how many hills and slopes there are to climb in the city. Chinatown's like the Petaling Street we have in KL, but bigger, and busier. Nothing really nice to see in Chinatown. Lots of good dim sum restaurants and Chinese food, I heard.

Left SF at about 5pm and arrived home about 7.30pm. Was so tired that I slept on my chair while waiting for some people online to reply my ICQ messages lol. Anyway, SF is a place I'd love to stay if I had to choose a place to stay in California. The view overlooking the bay is great, everything's great, and yes, everything's expensive too. Unless I win the lottery jackpot, living there would still only be a dream. It's a dream worth dreaming though :P

Gonna go clean up my messy room. Getting ready for classes tomorow.

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