Saturday 29th of May 2010 - San Francisco, Monterey, Carmel

So I awoke this morning relatively early, and packed my rucksack ready for my day out :-) I had called and confirmed the reservation yesterday, and on doing that had arranged for a pickup from my hotel at 08:15, as breakfast at my hotel starts at 08:00 during the weekend I decided not to risk it. Stood outside in the glorious sunlight and relaxed until the bus arrived, this the took us to Fishermans wharf where we checked in for our individual trips. The bus for Monterray and Carmel set off at about nine twenty, we had a garrulos driver whose name I cannot recall.

The drive was along the coast, parts of it were spectacular, and even the less spectacular bits were pretty, after the coast we drove inland for a bit, the scenery was sort of a cross between Devon and Souther Spain, brownish rolling hills. We stopped along the way at a chew and spew for the oldies to avail themselves of the facilities, and I had a cup of hot brown water.

Then more driving and we arrived in Monterey, now I don't want to upset anyone however it seemed to me to be just an indistinguishable tourist location, T-shirts, fudge, and dubious restaurants, I wouldn't have minded if it had had a little individuality like Provincetown however all it had was pictures of John Steinbeck everywhere. I went to a restaurant called "Fish Hopper" where the clam chowder tasted less pleasant than regurgitated vomit, and the deep fried fish... 1 piece from a fish like coley or pollock presumably had no flavour, the 2 deep fried prawns? had been cooked to such a degree that they were like greasy cardboard, and the six or seven bits of squid had no flavour whatsoever. I appreciate I may have been unlucky, (and believe me there wasn't that much less on the plate when I finished from when I started) and normally their food may be passable , however it was the worst restaurant experience I have had in North America and up there with my attempts at ordering takeaway Chinese food in Florida and fermented red tofu as the worst food I have ever tried to eat. And this insult to my tastebuds cost a bleeding fortune as well.

Whilst I malign Monterey I must admit that the Aquarium does look quite impressive from the outside, unfortunately our stop was only for about 75 minutes, so I only had time for a short wander and a rainbow sherbert icecream (which was nice) before boarding the bus. We then headed off for "The 17 mile drive" overall you can see how beautiful the scenery must have been before golf courses and architects whose idea of an artistic statement is "f*ck you" arrived. We saw some deer on one of the golf courses near bird island, which was nice, and Bird Island was not unattractive. We also stopped at "the lone Cyprus" the tree that is the logo of Pebble Beach golf course, it does look quite striking out there on its own, as I was taking photographs a squirrel ran up to the fence I was at and poked his head through, I got a couple of lovely photos :-).

We then stopped at the Pebble Beach clubhouse, it appears that they are hosting the US Open golf tournament in June (apparently it moves around a bit), I was surprised to learn that it is a public course with no members, however in preparation for the tournament they are denying the public the opportunity to spend 495 US Dollars on a round. I purchased a very nice shotglass celebrating the tournament and ambled relatively contentedly, although slightly peckishly back to the bus.

We then headed on to Carmel, which was a little strange, quite regimented and at the same time a little quirky (albeit in a "look at me, I'm quirky" sort of way) I actually rather liked it, we had an hour and an half to amble round which was very enjoyable, I had an iced coffee with the bubbles from bubble tea in it which was interesting and not unpleasant, and a cheese croissant which was very paletable.

Then back to the bus for 17:30, the driver asked where we wanted to be dropped off, now an invisible friend of mine called Jennifer* had recommended a restaurant called the Nob Hill Cafe so since we were to be arriving in the city at about eight I asked to be dropped there. On the way back we stopped at "the garlic capital of the world" (bless them) the shop was quite interesting however I didn't purchase anything as I don't want to know the havoc that garlic could wreak on my clothes in two weeks!

Anyway just after we set off on the final leg the old couple in front of me (he had taken photographs approx every three seconds of the trip, and she had done nothing but text her friends) started whining about their dinner arrangements, so I checked my phone and realised that we were indeed running a little late, once we had dropped people off at various hotels around the airport (people you save on the hotel, but then you have to lose a lot of time, and probably pay a lot of money to get into town), and at various train stations I realised that I wouldn't arrive at the restaurant until nine at the earliest, and that is a little late for me (I know my Spanish and Italian friends would be shocked at this as they don't even look at heading out before ten) so when he stopped at Union Square I alighted there.

On the way back to the hotel I pass Sushi Toni (or Swiss Toni as I thought of it), so I pulled in there and had some sushi (three nights in a row!) which was really rather good, however for three days I have had Spider Rolls (Deep fried soft shell crab, rice etc., etc. held together by seaweed, it is about an inch and an half round) because I rather enjoy it, however I cannot work out how to break it in two, and with the legs pointing out on the end bits even I cannot fit it all in.

And so to bed.


*Although I never actually think of her as Jennifer, in the same way as when Jose, Carol Ann or Cindy pop up I always need to do a sort of mental translation.