More Yosemite photos

And here is the promised "posing bear"


Be careful, this really happens


Half dome on the top-left

Yosemite

I still havent given up on my blog... although updates dont happen very often, I am still trying and I am still writing :-)

So, San Francisco was the last, Yosemite was the second last - one of my favourites as well.

Its a national park about 3 hours drive from San Francisco, so you can imagine it gets very crowded during the weekend.. and thats exactly when we arrived.
Yosemite is a paradise for rock-climbers and women :-)) The rocks are perfect for rock-climbing, so people from all around the world come here to climb (women to look at the rock-climbers) ;)

As in every national park, you could spend weeks here, there is always something to do. We didnt have that much time, so took only a couple of trails. The longest we took was the "waterfall trail" - we saw two beautiful waterfalls while climbing pretty high. A reward after the first waterfall was a small lake with crystal clear cold water and a flat plateau where the water was just sliding down in a wide but shallow stream.

But when you come to Yosemite in the late summer, dont expect too many waterfalls. The biggest ones - Yosemite waterfalls were all dry. Luckily we didnt spend much hiking to the waterfalls, so the disappointment of looking at many rocks where you could see that something somewhere was a little darker (wet).

The biggest tour of Yosemite is the Half-dome tour. Its about 26km return hike, but you climb to the very top of Half-dome which is pretty amazing. The last few hundret of metres are made by ropes, where the terrain is so steep and smooth that there is no other way how to get there (see the picture) This time we didnt make it, but definitelly next time! ;)

Not to forget - Yosemite was the last park and the first bear we saw :-) It was eating some grass in the forrest near the highway not too much bothered by the photographing freaks surrounding it. It made a very nice pose of laying on the back and scratching its belly, though ;)

Flowers of SF

There are flowers everywhere and I just couldnt help but taking photos...here are my favourites :-)



Ok, the above is not a flower... :-)

San Francisco photos

Golden Gate bridge


one of the steep streets


Lombard street


biking the bridge


Pier 39 - sea lions

San Francisco

I decided to describe the journey backwards.. why? Firstly - I hope I will remember the most recent things more than the ones that happened earlier. Secondly - San Francisco was my most favourite part of the journey.. Hopefully it wont be too confusing :-)

So....San Francisco...what to say..

After 3 and something weeks of traveling with 3 other Czech people, we separated our ways in SF. They drove back to New York to return our rental car (it is way cheaper if you rent and return at the same place) and I stayed in SF for almost 4 days..

The first highlight of my stay was a fact, that I absolutelly accidentally, not-intentionally met a friend I met about 3 months ago at a lifeguarding training... I was buying some bread at a local supermarket (somewhere in the streets - not even in the centre) and who do I see there...? I had even no idea that she was in San Francisco. After that we found out we were staying in the same hostel... was it just a coincidence?? I believe it was destiny!!
After that we spent days sightseeing and nights partying :-) :-)

San Francisco highlights

Cable-cars
The most famous public transportation of SF - cable cars - very convenient because of the hilly terrain. They look like from all the movies :-) Operated by one man who moves a strange stick. The other man is a ticket-man. I took a ride once (they cost USD5 for 1 ride...) and it was definitelly worth it. Even though I didnt want to at first it was just an unique experience. You have to hold yourself all the time, because the ride is not smooth at all and you are either going up the hill or down the hill.. Straight ways are not that common.

China town
My favourite part of the city was china town. You will definitelly know you entered it, because it seems like you entered a different world. Streets are FULL of chinese people, you dont hear any English, just Chinese. Signs on houses are written in chinese characters, only sometimes in English. There are very distinctive smells all over the streets, markets with fresh fruit/vegetables/meat (many exotic ones), chinese restaurants, shop with chinese groceries... My favourite part of the day was walking around, buying my favourite fruits that I havent eaten for a couple of years and eating a real chinese food that tastes like real chinese food (not the "Czech-chinese cuisine"...) and hearing Chinese and sometimes even speaking it.

The only thing that seemed worried me, was the fact, that some of the people that lived there dont really live in San Francisco. They speak very bad English (I wonder if some of them maybe dont speak English at all) and it just seems weird that after such a long time, their culture hadnt changed/adapted to the American at all..

All in all - San Francisco is a very beautiful city. Its very clean, streets are wide. Everytime you climb a hill you have a beautiful view. Houses are often painted white/or light colours and it gives the city a specific "light" athmosphere. Even though its quite a big city, there is a lot of green everywhere. Parks, flowers, trees all over, light wind from the ocean, beaufiul beaches (even though its not very good for swimming - I was even told you are not allowed to swim there because of the sharks and dangerous currents)
Its not very good for biking though. There are many bike-rentals all over the city that suggest that you bike through the Golden Gate Bridge, or just bike around. We did that (mistake!!)- I thought it will be a nice, easy bike around..but it was really exhausting.. Just imagine - up the hill, down the hill, up the hill... Ok, to be fair, biking through the bridge was nice, but the rest of the day was just full of pain.. :(