So, starting today, I'll be on vacation for about nine days or so, heading to the island of Hawaii in the state of Hawaii (the one with the active volcano). I completely forgot to make a blog post or anything about this, so instead, I'll just be making a travel log about my vacation with this here thread.
Summary
Today we flew to San Jose, where we'll be staying overnight until our actual flight to Hawaii itself in the morning. At the moment, we've driven to the pier-side area of the foggy city of San Francisco, where the buildings are barely visible and everything smells like fish.
We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, which is one of those overpriced restaurants with a specific gimmick; in this case, rock music (obviously). Rock music videos play on flat screen TVs mounted across the restaurant as the accompanying tracks play on speakers bolted to the ceiling. Various pieces of rock memorabilia adorn the walls, such as Elvis's hat, Steve Perry's pea coat, and for some reason one of Katy Perry's sweaters.
The food itself is okay at best; I ordered a cheeseburger done medium well, as their menu claims is their specialty, and while the inside of the burger was fine if a bit overdone, the outside of the patty was thoroughly charred and made the whole thing taste like charcoal.
The fries were fairly generic and were served with a variation of fry sauce (a unique sauce primarily found in Utah made mostly of Ketchup and Mustard) that had an extremely strong taste. The portions were okay in size but definitely not worth the price. I'll give the place about 5/10.
After lunch, we walked around Pier 39 for a bit, looking through all the various tourist trap shops and spending some time looking at the sea lion colony that lives on the docks.
We then proceeded to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge (part of which was covered by a particularly low-flying cloud), loop back around to the other side of the freeway, and then drive over the bridge again.
We drove through Chinatown on our way back to San Jose, and arrived at our hotel about an hour after we were expected thanks to San Francisco traffic. Our first room had a clogged toilet, and rather than just having maintenance fix it, they had us move rooms to an identical room on the second floor. Not entirely sure why but honestly idc as long as the free WiFi keeps working.
Also I still have to do college work while we're on vacation because the schedule for our current course is shit fml
Photos
A shrub/metal crab sculpture outside the entrance to Pier 39.
The boatyard of the pier.
A view of the main plaza area.
These stairs play piano notes when you step on them.
A shot from the end of the pier with the Golden Gate Bridge on the left and Alcatraz on the right.
Driving on the Golden Gate Bridge.
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