Day 10: San Francisco

Well after the people next store denied us of most of our sleep we got up and had a very good breakfast of Pancakes and Waffles at the classic American Breakfast Diner. Feeling very well fed we set off first to see the interesting Victorian buildings down the street then navigate the incredibly steep hills down to the waterfront of San Francisco.
Finding this we began to walk along the waterside paths towards the main piers, to book a time for a trip to Alcatraz later in the day.
The waterfront was bustling and even before hitting the main pier: pier 39 we found a Chocolate shop (Ghiradelli) which had started in 1852 and judging by their free samples at the door were still brilliant at making Chocolate. Needless to say we bought a large bag of assorted Chocolates!

Unfortunately, upon arriving at the pier (number 35) that took tours to Alcatraz we discovered that the tours were effectively sold out until Monday, and we were due to leave on Sunday Morning! Evidently we should have booked earlier.
This was very disappointing (but we had to leave something to do when we come back in later life) so we consoled ourselves by first visiting the Bay Aquarium, which was very good. It included such animals as rays, leopard sharks and luminescent Jellyfish, all allegedly found in the harbour.
Soon after exiting we had another huge American lunch of Sandwiches and then walked down disappointed intending to take the Cable Cars up to the back of San Francisco for a look around after visiting a large museum of old coin operated games from years ago.
On the way however we discovered another cruise we could take instead of one to Alcatraz and after some discussion took the opportunity. This cruise would take us beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, Near Angel Island and around Alcatraz with a few stories.
This tour however was not until 3 so we went to the mentioned museum and had a further look around the Piers.

When we finally got aboard the cruise in addition to seeing the things I mentioned, we also saw many sea lions, a couple of dolphins, more Pelicans and San Francisco's other large bridge, the Bay bridge. The views were wonderful and the sea considerably less choppy than we had feared. Feeling much better having done our tour of San Francisco's harbour we now set off to the Cable Car, where we proceeded to wait for about one and a half hours (it was rather an inefficient transport system evidently (at least at our end).
But we were very glad we had done it once the ride started! Hanging off the outside of the Cable Car through San Francisco's steep streets was truly fantastic, and we arrived at the end of the line having had great fun.
Following this we looked round for a place for dinner, and in the end found our way back to Chinatown for a very nice dinner at a local Chinese Restaurant.
Finally we again made our way back to the motel, picking a slightly better way this time and arrived much earlier than the previous night.
It truly was a full and (mostly) efficient day seeing a great amount of the city in the one day we had!