We hit all the tourist attractions and landmarks in the first few days by various means of transport - Cable cars, BARTs, buses, taxis, rail transits and squeezing an illegal amount of people in a five seater car. Their transport system is so clean, convenient and arrive so frequently here, unlike Sydney's Shitty Rail.
The architecture of the Golden Gate Bridge is so aesthetically pleasing to look at with the contrast of the royal red against clear blue skies. I want to bike along the whole bridge one day rather than walk a few metres in because I didn't want to stray too far from my family. Also the Palace of Fine Arts was under reconstruction two years ago so I finally got to see the inside with statues of people facing in and butts out. Grander things out of the way, I love the houses here. They're like small paper towns built on steep, sloping hills. I would want to live here one day.
The main reason why I love San Francisco so much is because of my family. My aunty and uncle are way too kind and generous while my cousins are people who I can call friends too. By "friend" I mean be bad influences (we taught our cuzzies/habibs how to speak like western Sydney siders, eshays brah) and slack to each other. E.g. when Garland gave me a book on how to make friends and Vivian offered to buy heart chocolates for Valentine's for me because I'll "probably never get one." THANKS, GUYS.
They also gave me a place to settle down and call home. I carried out an ordinary lifestyle here on most days - Get up, go downtown, come home to snack on American junk food, go to the gym (I'll revert back to my potato life when I get back though), eat a tub of Ben & Jerry's straight after, shower, watch YouTube videos and TV series and go to sleep with Tiger waking me up through growls or obsessive licking. A laid back routine with no expectations from real life things.
Pier 39 is another tourist attraction full of unique, colourful shops and performers. There were shops full of barrels of taffy, chocolates that can only be found in San Francisco, the best donuts I've ever had, a shop just for lefties, another shop just for pets, accessories, games and barking sea lions being plank potatoes. There was also a vicious seagull that knocked my sister's ice cream out of her hands and it was the saddest thing I've ever witnessed.
We went on a ferry for a tour around and had a little bit of a history lesson on Alcatraz, the now abandoned prison. We kept running and jumping around the ferry till I got seasick. It was so nice to watch the sunset from the sea and see twinkling lights on buildings in the skyline in the distance.
San Francisco Zoo had so many animals that Australian zoos don't have. (But I think Taronga Zoo is more impressive.) I SAW MY VERY FIRST SQUIRREL AND CHASED IT AROUND THE GRASS. If I had nuts, I would've thrown them at it to lure it so I could maybe pat (or get bitten) by it.
Prairie dogs are the cutest things, ever. Can I sneak one in through customs? Please? Or can I at least hold one the way my uncle chased a chicken around the zoo to carry and hug it?
Japantown was full of [taiko drum rolls] Japanese stuff. There were Japanese food, bookstores, supermarkets, hairdressers and even a shop full of Hello Kitty things. We spent most of our time there taking embarrassing sticker photos that will probably never see daylight. I'm beginning to get used to how friendly and social the workers are.
Before my family departed for their flight (I stayed back an extra fortnight because I have no priorities to go back to at Sydney yet), we celebrated my sister's birthday with food from San Jose and a Ben & Jerry's cake. Tiger was the party animal. We played clip the tail on the dog.
The next fortnight felt much quieter. I got told by a couple of gypsy looking ladies that I have "nice ears" and that one of them dyed their hair jet black and announced, "LOOK I'M ASIAN LIKE YOU." I got woken up by Tiger at least three times a night with a panic attack. I spent a whole bus ride wondering whether this man/woman was a man/woman. I ran straight into a mirror after taking literally one step into this infinite mirror maze. I witnessed the famous Bushman at Fisherman's Wharf scaring unsuspecting passersby. I awkwardly sat in the lounge rooms of distant relatives during Chinese New Year and guiltily accepted red envelopes from them while they kept feeding us with Asian sweets. I forced some down my throat to the point where I started tearing from laughing at how bad they were, but pretended to love it.
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