Up Hill and Down

Manda writes:

Times are getting tough already - I worked in a fortune cookies factory today.

Only kidding, I did it for five minutes. I was only doing the touristy thing - posing for a photo in exchange for some fortune cookies. Things have moved on since I last handed these out as a waitress. Fortune cookies now also come in chocolate flavour and even some with adult rated fortunes! Aren't I glad I don't need to hand these out anymore?!

The fortune cookie factory is based in China Town. San Francisco's China Town is a lot bigger than the one in London and is a lot more spread out. It covers several square blocks with various overspills onto more alleyways.

Our next stop was Coit Tower. One thing about San Francisco that all tourists notice is how hilly it is. The climb to the tower was no exception. With slopes slanting at around 30 to 40 degrees, it gave my thigh muscles a work out! Once we arrived at the base of the tower, we realised that all the hard work was over. We took the escalator up to the top to admire the spectacular views. Luckily we had blue skies - we have had a mixture of rain and dry patches all day.

From Coit Tower we walked to the twisty section of Lombard Street (see yesterday's write up). Any one that knows San Francisco will know that this is a fairly long stretch (well, for me it is anyway!). With the blue skies, we thought we'd go back to get better photos. So what did it do when we got there? Yep, cats and dogs again! The rain did clear up after ten minutes though and we did get some better photos afterall.

Content that we had done enough sight-seeing for the day, Ian decided to go meet a guy he'd met earlier on this year at a conference. A very friendly guy called Doug Bowman, a web designer who is also a member of the Web Standards Project. I told Doug about wanting to visit the 'Mrs Doubtfire' house and he seemed quite amused, if not surprised that it was a real house.

[Ian adds: Jeez, this is possibly the worst photo I've had taken of me. Seriously, that is a smile, not a grimace!]

After leaving Doug at the Ferry Terminal Building, we headed down to Union Square to catch the shuttle bus back to the hotel. When we got there, we noticed a group of people carrying placards heading up to the square. They were demonstrating for the freedom to form a union. This is a major issue over here with companies often downsizing, employees losing their jobs with no union protection (apparently, companies do not encourage union membership here). In amongst the placards, I could pick out one that made me chuckle as it didn't seem to be related to the cause - or maybe it did! It simply read: 'Jesus Christ Loves You'.

It kinda reminded me of a picture taken at a woman's rights protest where a man is holding a placard up that reads 'Iron my shirt!'. How did he leave without any injuries?!