Help I'm in Jail!

So yea I'm sort of stuck behind bars, but I escaped because the door was left open.

Alcatraz was just one of the places I visited on this jam packed day. I walked all along the bay front, along the beach, onto piers, past museums, stores, restaurants, into the Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39. Oh yea did I forget to mention that I rode the cable car.

Another amazing day.

Started off early in the morning, around 6am. Found the continental breakfast room, and set off for my adventure. To my luck, the cable car which takes me all the way down to the pier areas was half a block from my hotel.The cable cars are awesome, very old styled and just fun to ride. They are not really used for major transportation anymore, mainly a tourist attraction, but for $5 it took me from my hotel (start of the line) all the way to the pier (end of line) all within good time and a fantastic scenic view. I have some great video footage, but I'll post the link to it later, need to compress the file.


Down by the beach, a race or marathon was going on. People were surfing and swimming and on the pier many were fishing. The city is so active everywhere you turn. I had a great view of Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge from this one Pier, I forgot the name but its the one that curls the most in the map below.

The red marks roughly all I traveled today. The long straight line was the cable car and the rest was on foot.

I need to reach pier 33, which was said to be a 20min walk from where I was. That was the place I needed to be to get on the ferry to Alcatraz. During my trek there I pass all these interesting places. Ripley's Believe it or not museum (I so wanted to go, but it closed early), a wax museum, and all this other stuff. (I'll upload most of the pics online, where you can practically follow my steps)

I reach Pier 33, a protest is going on against the Ferry company.





Finally I get in line for the ferry and head off to Alcatraz (at this time I sent a billion people a text message saying I was going to jail and they called it the rock. Some people got it, but others were freaked out and thought something happened to me. (Thanks for those that cared =P) Anywho the ride out was cool and quick like less than 10mins.

The island tour was interesting, it didn't hit me so much that this was a real jail and that crazy dangerous people once were here and many had died or been murdered here. Oh yea and this used to be a military fort. Yea it didn't really take notice till I started going through my pictures and video clips. How really eerie this place was. I took the audio tour which I highly recommend because if you don't, you'll just walk around aimlessly. Anyways, I learned a lot about the place and you know walked around. There are really great views from the island.

Well I finally got back on my boat, and headed for shore. I was starving at this point and headed over to Pier 39. This place is sooo cool, it was like a mall but outside on a pier. So many great restaurants and shops and ICE CREAM! There is like an ice cream shop on every corner it was great. I ate at the Wipeout Bar and Grill, had me some Fish and Chips (mighty good). After that I ventured throughout the rest of the pier and into the many shops. They even had a carousel and other little rides, like virtual simulators and bungee jump stuff. There was an arcade which I couldn't pass up and found Time Crises 4!!! It cost me $1.50 for one play, which gave me three lives. I was like WTF? The game was really sharp, but omg the bullet response was sooooooooo SLOW! The game was fast paced, but my shooting couldn't hone up. I only played it twice, because that took $4 already. But the game looks good, just need more practice, hopefully they have it at Game Works.

Well I went into a few more shops and took off back towards the cable car. At this time, the place was packed all around. People were everywhere, and street performers were quite abundant. I saw some break dancers, a silver mime (we have a few in Chicago), a hustler (this guy had a box setup with 3 caps and a red ball and was betting people if they could find the ball. It seemed way too easy as I watched I picked the right one all the time. But this one guy kept losing money to him and then would win it. It was way too fishy, but I left without going for it.)
I finally had the chance to meet a beatboxer, Humanoid. Cool dude.

Well I headed back to the cable car finally and got back to my hotel where I took a much needed nap.

There's still so much I did, but I can only write for so long without making everyone bored. I'll try and get the rest of the pics and videos up soon.

As tomorrow or actually today is the FIRST DAY OF GDC !!! WHoooooooooooooooo!!!

-A.J.