(As always, much more and higher res photos can be found here)
On Monday we had to find a quick cab to the northeast side. We started our day with a trip to TCHO Chocolate Factory. The actual tour was very short, but I think people just go for the chocolate tasting afterwards. It’s a bit like a wine tasting, except there’s no need to spit anything out.
We walked up the street for lunch at Fog Harbor Fish House.
After we finished we went next door to the Aquarium.
The aquarium was smaller than we imagined, so we were left with three hours before our Alcatraz tour would leave pier 33. We walked across the street for a tour of the main creative agency that direct marketing at KP uses. After that we walked up the hill to Lombard and went to Coit Tower in the daylight, this time getting to take the elevator to the top.
We walked back down the east side of the hill, which is a very interesting walk down wooden stairs through gardens until reaching the final drop.
After coming down we took a break in the park by the Levi building before grabbing some deli sandwiches for dinner while waiting for our Alcatraz tour boat to leave.
On Alcatraz there were many many areas roped off. It was surprising how little we were allowed to actually see. Essentially we were only allowed on the walkway from the dock to the prison, inside the first floor of the prison, and the area just in front of the building under the lighthouse. Everything else, which meant bazillions of photo opportunities, were off limits.
Most visitors were only there to take the self-guided tour through the jailhouse.
I soon found out that my plan to take photos of San Francisco from across the bay may have been quite foolish. The wind out there on the bay blows hard and cold, and keeping my camera still for any sufficiently long exposure was next to impossible.
For most of our visit the island was packed with people, but after the 8:40pm (the second to last) ferry left, things thinned a bit and we could get some creepy photos in the prison without a herd of humans in the shot.
As I tried to take more long exposures going back to the boat we were pushed along by the national parks rangers before I could get much of anything. One particularly agitated ranger had to have the concept of “long exposure” explained to him by his coworker, lest he thought I was playing with him when he said “that’s your last one!” and I didn’t move for a minute.
