Its only a short walk from the Japanese Tea Garden, over the park to the California Academy of Sciences. Tickets are available for $24.95 for adults, $19.95 for seniors and $14.95 for children. The sales lady tells us that we will be unable to attend the planetarium as all the tickets have been sold out. But that’s okay by us as there are plenty of things to see. Now the Academy has the Steinhart aquarium, a rain forest, a natural history museum and a planetarium and they are all under a living roof. Its pretty amazing really and the first…
San Francisco Archives
Golden Gate Park – California Academy of Sciences
Golden Gate Park – Japanese Tea Garden – San Francisco
The Japanese Tea Garden is just a short walk from the de Young museum and it cost $7.00 to enter. Like all the Japanese gardens I have been to there is lots of water and greenery. Its a bit of a maze to walk around but that just adds to the charm and you come across interesting things hidden in amongst the plants. We stand for a while watching the gardener trimming and shaping the bushes around a pond, and I comment to Val about the absence of fish. Most Japanese gardens I have been to always have lots of…
The Golden Gate Park – De Young Museum -Tutankhamun Exhibition San Francisco
I am really looking forward to today. We are going to the de Young Museum to see the ‘TUT’ exhibition. The story of mystery and magic surrounding the life and death of the boy king ‘Tutankahem’ has always been a favorite of mine. We head into Union Square and then down to the Visitors Information Centre to find out how to get to the Golden Gate Park. We had missed the 10:30am hop on hop off bus which only goes twice a day to the park. An elderly gentleman behind the counter casually waved in some direction and said catch…
CitySightseeing The Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury,
Being gluttons for punishment we continue to drive around San Francisco on an open top bus in the freezing cold and after arriving back at Leavenworth St we catch the downtown loop bus to as we were going to go and see the Tutankhamen exhibition at the De Young Museum in the Golden Gate Park. But in the end we changed our minds and will do that tomorrow. Our tour guide was so interesting we preferred to stay on the bus and hear what she had to say. Plus I was looking forward to driving through the Haight – Ashbury…
CitySightseeing – the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausaltio, the Palace of Fine Arts
Today is cold and windy, and of course this is the day we have decided to take the bus over the Golden Gate Bridge and go onto to Sausalito. The Bridge is cloaked in fog but the view is not too bad. There are a couple of new tours since Paula and I were here last year and the Golden Gate Bridge and Sausalito is one of them, although you can just do the bridge tour if you wish. Our ride is a converted school bus and we sit in the uncovered section in the back, probably not the smartest…
Mel’s Drive In and Ripley’s Believe it or Not in San Francisco
This morning was wash day. The laundry is situated in the garage of the Holiday Inn just a short walk up the road. So I purchased enough quarters to do a couple of loads, one today and one before we leave for Las Vegas. The costs for using the laundry are as follows: Laundry powder – $1.00 per box Washing machine – $2.00 per load Dryer – $2.00 per load So all in all quite economical. Once the washing was completed we headed off to Levenworth St to purchase tickets for the hop on hop off bus. I forgot to…
Flying with Qantas and Arriving in San Francisco
We left the Stamford Plaza Hotel in Sydney at 11:30am in the airport shuttle heading off to Terminal 1 to catch the plane to San Francisco. Check in was quick and easy and I changed some dollars at Thomas Cook, making sure I had plenty of one dollar bills for tips once we arrive in the US. I vow this is the last time I travel in cattle class. Val had the window seat, I was in the middle and an American lady who lives in Canberra and was traveling to Portland to meet up with her partner, had the…
Holiday Inn Express – Fishermans Wharf – San Francisco
While we were in San Francisco we decided to stay at Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites San Francisco Fishermans Wharf (This hotel is not to be confused with the Holiday Inn Hotel – Fisherman’s Wharf which is right next door.) We actually got a great deal through Hotwire which included return airfares from Las Vegas and 5 nights accommodation for $376 each. This is the first time we have booked through Hotwire and the process was quite simple. The only drawback is that you don’t know your flight times until after you have booked and paid for the package. So…
More Sights To See in San Francisco
St Patricks day is being celebrated with a parade down Market St. So it’s down for an early breakfast and off to catch the cable car in Powell St. The Powell-Market and Hyde-Market cable cars run North/South across San Francisco. This is Paula’s first time on the cable car. After yesterday I am now an old hand. It doesn’t take too long for the men to turn the cable car around so that it is facing in the right direction and we are off. We clatter our way up and down the steep hills, and because it is such a…


Wanda and Paula are friends and business partners that love to travel. We developed this website to share our experiences, what we've learned over the years and also to provide reviews on hotels, airlines, restaurants and anything else travel related.