Shopping and S.O.M.O.T.D.

Exhausted!

My body is still majorly confused about what time it is. I woke up at 3.30 am wide awake. Tossed and turned for 1 and a half hours before finally going back to sleep. Woke up at 10am and couldn't pull myself off the pillow.

We had breakfast at Denny's, which is a kind of diner-style place. It's a chain store, but it's healthier than McDonalds. Had oatmeal (among other things) which I've dreamed of eating since the Sesame Street days. Turns out it's the same as porridge, but they serve it with brown sugar not honey. It was still nice - and good because it's SO COLD. Haha. (Today I was fine, I had enough warm clothes on, Mum.)

We headed down to Pier 39 after that, which was awesome. It's a really, really touristy area - actually the whole waterfront/wharf area is pretty touristy - but it was really fun. Looked out over the bay to see Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge. There are all these Sea Lions that just hang out by the Wharf and chill, too. Very, very cute.

Post Pier 39 we walked up to Ghirardelli Square. Ghirardelli's is this AMAZING chocolate shop. Oh my GOD. They had all the old machinery on display actually making chocolate! It looked so good... like the chocolate waterfall in Willy Wonka? Yeah. Like that. Slightly smaller, though.

The last place we went this afternoon was called Haight and Ashbury (as in, "the corner of..."). It's a really awesome little area, kind of like a cross between the Valley and Byron Bay (The grungy, hip atmosphere of the Valley and the pot of Byron Bay). Actually I didn't see or smell anything, but there were shops like, "The Cannabis Connection," "Pipe Dreams," and many others boasting smoking parerphenalia. There were also stores called, "The Anarchist's Bookstore" and "Amoeba Music." Interspersed among these shops, however, were loads of great clothes shops, ( got a really great scarf for $6) and an awesome bookshop (that was far more realistic in its social views) where I got an Agatha Christie novel for $4.50.

Something I did notice today was that people seem to take their dogs everywhere with them! Imagine every 10th person in the Queen St Mall with a dog. Yeah. It was like that. I thought it was fabulous! I must have seen a Boston (nowhere near as cute as Lulu, Selena!) a French Bulldog, a white boxer, a bully x cattle dog, two GSPs and maybe six Golden Retrievers. Just chilling in the city. Nice.

I'll put some photos on Facebook of today.

Later skaters!

Lxx

OH! I forgot to tell you about SOMOTD! (Strange Old Man Of The Day - a new reccuring feature of my blog.) Until just before I got home, today's SOMOTD was going to be a guy who was busking with a guitar and begging in rhymes. (Eg. To a redhead: "Little Miss Red, have you got any bread?" To a fellow African American: "Hey there bro, have you got any dough?" To a guy in a suit: "Hey Sir, looking fine, could you spare me a dime?" etc.)

HOWEVER, this man was totally and utterly upstaged by a guy we spotted as we were walking to dinner (Clam Chowder again! In a bowl made of BREAD. Amazing.) through Fisherman's Wharf. He had a whole heap of branches he'd gotten , and tied together in a sort of... screen. He was sitting on a milk crate next to the fence next to the water. To someone who was walking past not really looking, he could have been a potted shrub/tree. When someone walked close who wasn't paying attention, he'd shake the branches and go, "Rargh!" The funniest was when he did it to a little kid - I swear this girl jumped four feet in the air. Hilarous. The Old Women were fairly good targets as well, haha. So yes. Man-Disguised-As-Shrub wins today's SOMOTD award.