Tour bus to San Francisco/Yosemite..etc

[napman]

We ( I, my wife, my sister, my wife?s sister and brother) took a local commercial tour bus trip of 3 days and 2 nights up to San Francisco and some of those local tourist attractions. It was the first time that I don?t have to drive by myself and don?t have to concentrate on the road and enjoy more of everything else.

I?m in no way a photographer of any level, not even the beginner! But I?d like to share some fun with you here with my ?Point and shoot? cheap camera and ?Point and pan? cheap handheld camcorder just in case some of you still don?t have a chance to go to California and do this kind of touring.

So please enjoy (or not) this mini-trip with us if you can!

We got on the bus early in the morning at Arcadia city and first stop was at a city called ?Solvang? about 2 hours drive up north from Los Angeles. Solvang is a Danish city and they try to conserve their Danish tradition in everyway they can. It?s a fun place to stroll around for few hours for Danish food and sight seeing too. SV is in Santa Barbara vicinity and not really too far from ?The Neverland? ranch of late King of Pops ?Michael Jackson?










From there, the bus took us to San Luis Obispo to visit ?Hearst Castle?, HC is one of those Financially rich people. I?ve never been in there and still have no intention to get in to see this extravaganza home of 56 bed rooms, 61 bath rooms and other rooms, swimming pools and gardens and whatever they wanted to build and stay while they were alive before took the 6?x3? hole in the ground when they die and get rotten away.



We arrived at the hotel that located in ?Union city? about 20 minutes drive south of San Francisco. We checked in around 9.00 pm and went straight to bed in order to get up early and go on the scheduled tour.

First stop early in the morning is ?Stanford University?. the SU is called the Harvard of the West. It?s in Palo Alto which is almost in the center of Silicon valley the fame High Tech producer of Google, Yahoo, HP?.etc.






They took us to have breakfast at San Francisco?s China town before dropped us off at the location that very close to the fame Golden Gate bridge. I didn?t remember the name of this particular place but it consisted of Italian style constructions as you can see here in pictures.





Next stop is of course ?Golden Gate bridge?, we were lucky enough to be able to see the whole bridge. In most cases there?d be lot of fog to obscure the bridge view.



The infamous Alcatraz;



From there they took us to ?Fisherman?s wharf? to have lunch and take a cruise ship in the SF bay for 90 minutes, we opted to stroll around the piers (only my brother-in-law who came to visit us from Chiangmai chose to get on the cruise that took him few places in the bay that included the infamous Alcatraz island too)



We left Fisherman?s wharf and they took us to few other sight seeing attractions as follow;





Here's the picture of the six exactly houses, don't ask me why the owner did that!!!!!!






They took us pass ?Castro Street? which is very (in) famous about Gay and Lesbian. I couldn?t believe my eyes when we passed one the G & L bar. There were two guys standing in front, one of them just wearing an underware and the other guy wearing nothing, except a small piece of leather glove right at his genital! Can you believe it!!!! Sorry no picture here!

The bus took us up to ?Twin Peaks? which is the highest peak in SF so we can look down 360? at the whole city below. It?s always windy up at the peaks every time I went there and no exception for today.

Golden Gate bridge;



We went back to hotel about 9.00 pm after had dinner at SF?s China town. We had to get on the bus early at 5.00 am to leave SF and get to Yosemite village just to take a glance at it. I think we got to YV around 10.00 am, They dropped us off at only 3 tourist attraction spots in Yosemite Village and I can?t blame them because they have very tight schedule that they have to follow in order to finish the whole trip.










I still hope that you enjoyed (more or less) this mini-trip since you get to this line!!

Until next trip, and don?t forget that ?Life is a journey in itself, stop and smell the roses, enjoy the whole journey, never mind the destination, we?ll all get to the same destination when our own times come, enjoy every minute of your life my friends, we are all getting to our last minute sooner or later? hahaha??.