We started Day 6 of our great road trip across the U.S with a few light hikes at Emerald Bay of Lake Tahoe. Having just experienced several days of beautiful desert landscape, once again it was amazing to see another huge change in scenery with the great green forests, snowy peaks and blue waters of Lake Tahoe!
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| Playing with the sunlight! |
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| Feeding the Ducks! |
We finally settled into San Francisco, where we would set as base camp for the next 6 days.
At this time, we had not yet confirmed where we would be getting our required "double negative" Covid tests. China's latest regulations for incoming international travelers required both a negative Covid test, indicating no active infection, AND a negative Covid Antibody test, indicating no infection in the past two weeks or so. These tests needed to be performed within 48 hours of the traveler's flight to China, and also, they needed to be validated by the local Chinese Consulate before you could even board the flight. In other words, you really needed to receive your test results within one day of taking the test, otherwise you would run the risk of not obtaining the Consulate's certification in time!
Unfortunately, these requirements were yet very new, so not many clinics/labs were able to turn this around. In fact, by this point on our trip, the original clinic we had arranged to perform our testing had indicated that they didn't have enough supplies to be able to provide our testing on our requested date! So, I scrambled a bit and finally was able to schedule our testing to be performed later in the week at the Chinese Hospital of San Francisco, where the one and only Bruce Lee was born! I did not know this until we arrived there for the testing!
Our test appointments booked, we had some time to explore the iconic Fisherman's Wharf of San Francisco, home to the "Seal-ebrity" Sea Lions!
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| Even the Sea Lions seemed to be social distancing! |
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| Alcatraz |
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| Doing her part to Curb the Spread! |
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| This Sourdough bakery smelled so good! |
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| The famous Lombard Street neighborhood! |
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| The Transamerica Building |
Some of our early observations of San Francisco and the Bay Area:
- It was surprisingly dirty. I would have thought the high local taxes would be used to maintain streets and keep the air quality clean - but it was always hazy with an AQI into the 100s, which I would expect for much of China, but not for California, with all of its environmental initiatives. In addition, street litter was much higher than I have seen in most cities almost anywhere, which was again a surprise given the environmental initiatives California is so famous for!
- It is EXPENSIVE! I knew it was expensive, but I didn't think it would be THAT expensive. Fuel is often well into the $4 range, double of that in neighboring states. Groceries were unexpectedly expensive as well, and, as far as I could tell, the quality was not nearly what we had gotten used to in the Midwest, for pretty much double the price. Coupled with the notoriously high housing costs in the region, it really made us wonder what the appeal of living in this area is! I would later find out that, with the Work from Home initiatives in place, many folks are actually leaving the area due to this high cost of living!
- There are a LOT of Chinese Americans here! It sounds weird to say it out loud, but it's actually quite interesting to see so many Chinese Americans in blue collar or labor jobs. In most other cities, Chinese Americans tend to be somewhat highly educated and in tech jobs, or otherwise medical or law. But here in San Francisco, the Chinese population has been here for generations, and some probably descended from the Chinese labor force that arrived in California in the 1800s to work the railroads. In any case, it was somewhat surprising to see how the Chinese population has integrated here!
Two days before our flight, we finally arrived at the Chinese Hospital of San Francisco, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, was in Chinatown and served mostly San Francisco's massive Cantonese population. The testing was done pretty smoothly, and it was a gentle swab in just the tip of the nostrils, unlike the deep nasal swab we had received in Cedar Rapids for our visa applications several weeks prior.
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| Bruce Lee was born here! |
After our testing, we went off on another little adventure:
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| Some of SF's unique architecture and roads |
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| An iconic 'Frisco Trolley! |
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| More California Icons - In 'N Out Burger! |
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| We got these cool solar powered Fortune Hailing Mice from the Chinese Hospital! |
Our destination for this afternoon was the famous Muir Woods, where we sought out the Giant Redwood Forest!
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| We arrived a little late, so the first order of business was to quickly complete the Junior Ranger workbooks! |
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| So we could get our badges! |
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| Playing with interesting perspectives |
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| Some big trees! |
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| Wild turkeys roam the woods outside of the park! |
Early the next morning, we received our "Double Negative" test results, so I promptly filled out the application to seek the Consulate's approval for our results! With our results received, we had exactly one extra day to roam before our flight, so on the next morning we headed to probably the most iconic of San Francisco's sights - the Golden Gate Bridge!
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| You don't see one of these every day! |
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| Complete with Gull Wing Doors! |
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| An old fort under the bridge! |
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| An old tunnel between the parking lot and the bridge! |
While in the parking lot, we found that the Consulate had already approved the test results for myself, Fifi, and Lukas, but Cherry's results were rejected! I scrambled to get a more clear passport photo to re-submit, and then we continued our hike. By the time we had reached the bridge, we breathed a sigh of relief when Cherry's QR code came back green!
With all of our ducks in a row, we decided to take one more side trip to see a relative I hadn't seen in more than ten years, my favorite cousin Leo who lives in the Bay Area!
We decided to meet at the campus of the prestigious Stanford University, where we met each others families for the first time!
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| Lians from different mothers and fathers! |
Unfortunately, our meet and greet was cut short, because incidentally, due to upticks in Covid cases in California, the Stanford campus was technically off limits to visitors, and we were illegally parked! So I picked up my last infraction - a parking ticket - heading back to the Middle Kingdom...
