An Afternoon in The City

 

There is always time in the day to indulge in history lessons

so the first order of business in the afternoon was to decide

if we would tour the World War II Liberty ship, Jeremiah O'Brien,

 

or the WWII submarine, USS Pampanito.

 

 

 

 

The Pampanito won by a majority!

 

(The sign says, "80 Men, 75 Days, No Showers)

 

 

The first difficulty was convincing Miss T that she WAS able to go down the

ladder backwards into the submarine.  She was not happy about the matter.

 

Then, every so often, we had these little doorways to climb through.

 

 

 

The basic necessities were not very large or luxurious. 

 

{toilet room}

 

{bunk room}

 

{kitchen}

 

{dining room}

 

 

 Mechanical equipment took up most of the space.

 

 

And at either end, there was the reminder that this was an

 instrument of war and destruction.

 

I truly can not imagine 80 unshowered men living in these close quarters

 for any length of time.  It would certainly test my patience but then...

I am not a man.

 

We worked our way from one end of the sub to the other

pitching sideways and rolling with the waves.

By the time we exited, this guy was dizzy and needed

to be out on solid earth.

 

{feeling much better now}

 

 

After a stop at our vehicle for dry clothing, we spent the rest of the afternoon walking.

Every so often we stopped to take a picture then we walked some more

(and some more!).

 

 

{Here we were watching swimmers. Yes, swimmers!}

 

{There were always opportunities to walk uphill.}

 

{That's Alcatraz right between us}

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the afternoon drew to a close, we felt like we could walk no more.

We wearily climbed into our vehicle, exited the parking garage

(after paying an exorbitant sum of money-- such is life in the city),

and headed out to spend our evening in Chinatown.

 

 We drove straight UP the streets...

 

and then straight DOWN the streets...

 

(and even had to stop for a cable car)

 

to get to Chinatown.

 

Then we walked some more as we looked in the shops.

 

We also admired the architecture

 

and marveled at the interesting restaurants.

This is the Floating Sushi Boat Restaurant

and we were entertained just looking in the window.

There was a big island filled with plants and around the perimeter

was a river of water upon which floated wooden boats

loaded with beautifully prepared sushi.

The patrons sat around the island and could pick out which ever boat appealed to them.

 

After walking up one side of the street and down the other

and buying a few small things,

it was time to eat.

Unfortunately, our favorite restaurant was completely full

so we headed back up the street and tried a new one.

 

{she was so excited about her purple chopsticks we had just bought}

 

 

 

At one point everyone in our family,

 except me, were eating with chop sticks so Miss T

declared that everyone, except me, were Chinese.

Oh well. At least I didn't struggle to get my food to my mouth.

 

The food was delicious.

We were very tired.

We were very glad our hotel room was not far away.

We were going to tackle the calm part of Hwy. 1 the next day.