Another well spent weekend. Saturday we guys (Mukesh, Nirnimesh, Suruchi and myself (Vardhman)) went to San Francisco city for visiting some of the tourist spots. We targetted going to Fisherman's Wharf, Pier 33, Ghirardelli square and Crookedest street.
The trip goes through CA-101 which is now quite familiar to us and CA-80(the one we would always wan't to avoid, Mukesh, Nir ? :)) and later goes on to merge to Embarcadero street which goes parallel to the Pacific ocean shore. The piers appear on the right hand side while driving North.
Pier 39 is the Famous pier named Fisherman's Wharf. The place had a lot more things to offer than we knew of and took a lot of time. Two major attractions are "Aquarium of the Bay" and the Sea Lions' Cafe. Besides that are some good shops to shop around. Many ppl prefer renting a cycle and visiting around this places, some ppl do skating too, we didn't want to try them there.
Following this we moved on to Lombard Street, known as the Crookedest street in the world and believe me it was so. Its like the one shown in Fast And Furious 2, Tokyo drift but much larger drifting. We attempted reaching North beach but missed it somewhere and finally decided to trace back to Mountain View. Dinner was at Chaat Paradise, which is a good place for eating North Indian food here.
Sunday morning(? :)) we left for Santa Cruz. A reading of WikiTravel.org helped us in planning out visiting the famous Santa Cruz Beach Broadwalk ammusement park, which we didn't know existed at all, the good thing about the park is the options of payment, you can pay for full day or pay by rides. We opted the second and felt the decision was good. The rides to enjoy here are Fireball, Typhoon, Giant Dipper and to a small extent Cyclone (its indeed a cyclonic experience). After this we went to the beaches nearby (unknowingly followed a 30-40 minutes drive to land back at almost same parking slot as earlier and walking all the way back to very near to the beach broadwalk). There was a place where ppl danced Salsa and I cudn't stop but joined them. It was fun. Walk on the beach was also good including the experience of a chilling pacific ocean water and followed by a small Beach volleyball game with some Mexican folks.
(Photos quick link http://picasaweb.google.com/nirnimesh.1/SanFrancisco, http://picasaweb.google.com/nirnimesh.1/SantaCruz) detailed inlining later.
