Over the bridge and through the woods

A perfect hot chocolate to start the day, which unfortunately also went down the front of my white shirt, but no matter, it was still a good start to my first tour - over the Golden Gate Bridge (it's painted International Orange FYI), a walk through Muir Woods and finally lunch (Chili & fries) at the pretty seaside town of Sausalito.

In the afternoon for a long time I just chilled out at Fisherman's Wharf, soaking up the sun and unsuccessfully tried my first Soduku puzzle. After feeling my skin starting to burn, I took myself off for a walk, soon stumbling across one of my favourite attractions - Ripley's Believe It or Not!

This freak, Chungking, actually cut a hole in his scalp to hold the candle in place.

This is a disturbing but festive designer fantasty coffin which are made in Ghana. Their coffins reflect the occupation of the dead person, which in this case was for a former president of a local bottling plant.

And this happier one is a mural made from shoe laces and old sneakers. The photo doesn't do it justice; it is so colourful and lively in real life!

Finally, with much anticipation, I finished the day off with some real Mexican nachos and a pineapple flavoured soft drink also from Mexico. And it was delicious!

Oh, I also heard a neat story about the bridge today. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Golden Gate bridge in 1987, it was closed to cars in order to let pedestrians cross it en masse. 50,000 people were expected to cross it but on the day about 800,000 people turned up, which is pretty incredible considering the population of San Francisco was 750,000 at the time. The bridge dipped down 10 feet in the middle.