10th July – Malaysia to Korea to San Francisco

It was a good if very turbulent flight to Korea and we arrived at 9am. We had until 2.15pm to wait for the flight to SF so we found a quiet corner and crashed out on some chairs. Nick and I got about an hour’s work done too, which was tough but necessary.
The fight to San Francisco went well and we arrived at 9am rather tired. Everything went smoothly though in getting our bags, finding the hire car and the hotel. It was a bit of a shock as it was cold. We had just left average daily temperatures of 38 degrees and now were in about 15 degrees!!
We knew that the best way to get into a different time zones sleep pattern quickly is to go to bed at the right time no matter how you feel, so we set the alarm for 2.30pm and zonked out for a much needed three hours sleep. It was the hardest thing to wake up and we were all very grumpy but we knew it was necessary if we were to get any sort of decent sleep that night. There was a 13 hour time difference between Thailand and SF so we had some serious adjusting to do.
The first thing we did was head straight to the nearest Starbucks for a much needed coffee and to get another city mug to add to our collection. Even then we were all very tired and knew we had to do something other than just going back to the hotel or we would all just fall asleep again. It was the perfect opportunity to go to visit some famous SF sights. We drove first down to the Golden Gate bridge which was just as impressive as we hoped it would be. We managed to stop shivering long enough to take some photos of it and of Alcatraz. Next we drove up to the Haights, those steep streets we had seen in so many movies. The houses were gorgeous and many of the older ones had survived the 1906 earthquake.
Next stop Ross as we needed some warmer clothes. We managed to all find what we needed and a couple of things we didn’t.
We finished up the day (a very long one!) at the IHOP for dinner. We had forgotten how huge American portions are and ordered way too much food. We could have actually dined on half of what we got!