Summer Vacation - Part 10

Our last day in San Francisco..was actually the sunniest...we started the day early, went to see a few more things then started our 16 hour journey back home.

The hubby really wanted to see AT&T Park (where the San Francisco Giants play baseball).  So that was our first stop.

Our next stop was Union Square.  This area is full of shops and also very tourist-ridden..especially since the sun finally decided to come out.

Then we went to Chinatown.  We bought some souvenirs and bought Dimsum for lunch.

 

Our last stop was back to Twin Peaks.  Because when we were there our first day it was way too windy and foggy to see anything. 

It was still foggy but at least we got to see the beautiful views.

Yes..by the end of our trip we all <3 SF

Summer Vacation - Part 9

After our tour at the Winchester Mansion.  We had a quick lunch and drove back to San Francisco.  Our next stop...the Painted Ladies.  The Painted Ladies are old Victorian Houses most famous for their appearances on Full House,  Mrs. Doubtfire, and many others.  

The houses in San Francisco are all really skinny and barely have any space if not any between them.  The Painted Ladies are no exception.  

Me and my sister actually snuck up and sat on a couple of the houses' steps...

Then we drove down "Castro" Street...Castro Street is known to be America's largest gay district.  Kind of funny for us coz of our last name..teehee..

As we were driving back to our hotel we found a Jollibee which was attached to a Red Ribbon.  We definitely had to stop here for dinner.  The last time we had Jollibee and Red Ribbon was when we were in the Philippines last April...so we were super excited because we don't have these places in Canada.  

Summer Vacation - Part 8

After our long and exciting first day we decided to drive an hour south of San Francisco to San Jose.  Why San Jose you ask?  Well we wanted to visit the Winchester Mystery Mansion.  The story of Sarah Winchester and the mansion that she built was what drew us to visit the mansion.

Sarah Winchester married the son of the Winchester Rifle manufacturer during the 1800's.  They had a daughter who died as a very young child.  This made Sarah very depressed.  When her husband died soon after she decided to go to a Boston medium to get answers of why many bad things were happening to her.  The medium informed her that the reasons all these things were happening was because all the ghosts that were killed by Winchester rifles were haunting her and the only way to appease their spirits was to build a mansion to house all of them.  After Sarah learned this she bought acres and acres of land in San Jose and set to work to build this mansion...

...But  this is not just any old mansion...it is the most bizarre mansion you could ever imagine.  Examples of how weird this place was...well it has a staircase that leads straight to the ceiling, doors that open into walls,  twisted hallways, secret passages, and even doors that lead to no where.  Sarah built her mansion this way to confuse the spirits that were haunting her...she seemed like quite an odd lady..

..to make it creepier their are actually stories of spirit sightings in the house..and to be honest it was a hot day and some rooms definitely felt colder than normal...but I won't get into that right now

...anyways to make a long story short..the house is now a historical landmark and is open for daily tours...so of course we had to see how bizarre this mansion was for ourselves.

Unfortunately taking pictures inside the mansion wasn't allowed so you have to settle for outside pictures instead. 

There was so much detail throughout the whole mansion.  Apparently construction was being done on the house 24 hours a day, 7 days a year up until Sarah Winchester died in her 80's.  The house has 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and 6 kitchens.  By the end of our tour the tour guide informed us we had actually walked a whole mile. 

The door that leads to no where..

The staircase to the ceiling..(not from my camera)

Summer Vacation - Part 7

Also on Fisherman's Wharf is the USS Pampanito. The USS Pampanito was a naval submarine that was used in World War II. It has since been restored for daily tours and is located on Pier 45 at Fisherman's Wharf.

A torpedo..

More cut out fun!

Next to the USS Pampanito was a building filled with vintage arcade games that you could actually still play. Some of them were super creepy looking and some were just plain weird..

We explored the Wharf a bit more then got back into the car to get a better view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Yup still pretty foggy..

Can you believe this is how big one of the cables on the Golden Gate Bridge actually is?

Once our pictorial session was over we got back into the car again and headed up twin peaks. It was supposed to be a great view of the whole city..we should of thought it through better because the fog and wind was even worse up there. - FAIL..lol

We decided to come back on a clearer day...that is if we actually would be lucky enough to see some sun in San Francisco.

And that's the end of our first day..Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 2!