USA Day 4. San Francisco Downtown

I finally got a decent nights sleep! I mean it was very hot, and pretty noisy, but it was a whole 9 hours! Considering I've been running on 3 or 4hrs the past 4 days, 9 felt like a miracle!

I love the hostel I'm staying in (despite the lift being terrifying to use) so today I decided to simply wander around the area surrounding the hostel and just explore Downtown with no real plan in mind - i.e. no looking at a map unless absolutely necessary and just enjoying the city 

Turns out I'm a lot closer to Union Square than reviews online led me to believe!

I loved walking around downtown as there was an amazing mix of old and new buildings with beautiful blue skies and gorgeous warm weather!

I might have got a bit excited about all the shops I saw. Walgreens isn't exactly the most exciting shop sign to show you, but I took about 20 photos of various shops, and this was the only shop I actually bought anything from! (I bought some Twinkies to try, and oh my goodness they are so sweet!)

Loved the bird art across the side of this building

This is around the point I got completely lost, and I'm still not 100% sure where this church is… Although I think it was called St Patrick's (possibly)

This was Yerba Buena Gardens and it was the perfect little slice of greenery and tranquil in the middle of the city (it also helped me to figure out I had somehow made my way south of Market Street)

Bloomingdales! There are several large department stores dotted around the centre and I got excited going into every single one!

I ended up finding my way back from South Market Street to the Cable Car line where I popped into Westfield (a Mall) and made my way to get some mexican food - since it's meant to be amazing in California, and I'm no expert but these veggie tacos were pretty amazing (although I might be biased as they were dripping in guacamole, which is a sure fire way to gain my love)

At the end of Powell Street. It's always packed as this is one of the places you can queue to get on the Cable Cars, but the line is always ridiculously long!

San Francisco Downtown is so pretty!

Ok, so I was a little lost again at this point, however I'm blaming that solely on this building. Surely it's not fair to have 'Saxs Fifth Avenue' on a street corner that isn't 5th Avenue, when there's a 5th Street two blocks away… Anyway this threw me off as I then thought I was heading in the wrong direction (I got avenue and street mixed up…)

The good bit about wandering with no real plan is I feel you get to appreciate the place more as you tend to notice the little things of the place rather than being focused on getting from A to B. 

a sample of the hills dotting the city. Downtown is relatively flat but I know I'm going to spend half my time here climbing hills!

I stopped for a Slurpee to refresh myself after walking for hours in the sun (this was a small!!!)

Another beautiful building I wandered past

I found another Walgreens (there's about 3 in a small area) and this one had a little frozen yoghurt section in the middle next to the fruit and veg!

I really do love the architecture of this city, particularly love the street lights!

Legendary Cable Car! They're always full so I'm biding my time before spending hours queuing up!

(Peach Green Tea Lemonade - it was yummy)

And I finished off my day by stopping off at a Starbucks. There are truly hundreds of Starbucks- I think I passed about 8 today alone. They're also a lot cheaper than back home so I just couldn't resist since this mamother concotion was about £2! It also made me feel like a local since it seems like American's aren't fully dressed unless they're sporting a Starbucks drink!

Surprise 24hr Dubai

So, long story short, I'm writing this from a hotel room in Dubai. After travelling for over 30hours I landed in Dubai 45minutes late and got told I wasn't going to be able to make my connection. Luckily Emirates were pretty good and put me on the next flight to Newcastle - downside was the next flight wasn't for 24hours...

My lovely room!

 Emirates put me up in a lovely hotel for the night and paid for my meals there and transport to and from the airport. The only real downside was I certainly hadn't packed for Dubai's early summer heatwave, oh and I didn't have any suncream!

 Little shot of the hotel grounds - this was where I sat to have my breakfast after arriving in Dubai

 After letting Victoria know I wasn't going to be landing in Newcastle that day (sorry Paul for making you go to the airport for no reason!) I decided to make the most of having a surprise stop in Dubai, put on the most Dubai-appropriate outfit I could muster, and headed out to the Biggest Mall in the World so I could go up the TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD!

Not before going to dawdle at the massive indoor aquarium again!

 Burj Khalifa

 I went for a short walk around before going up, the day was so beautiful I was constantly at war on whether to enjoy the sun, without suncream, or stay inside

 Love this part of Dubai

 Getting up the Burj Khalifa is a bit of a pain, as if you don't book weeks in advance it's expensive but I figured I wasn't expecting to be here and I don't know when I'll next get to Dubai so I just thought - why not!

 There's a bit of a walk from the reception to the lift but it's filled with lots of inspirational quotes and beautiful photos and slideshows

 The lift itself was actually kinda incredible! It zoomed up 124 floors in less than a minute and the weirdest thing was that it didn't even feel like you were moving! My ears popped four times but I still couldn't tell we were moving - so strange

 From the observation deck the view was pretty incredible!

 I love how you actually get to see Dubai, it's hard to explain the city's unique layout in worlds but I think from above it's quite clear.

 From the inside deck you can just see Dubai Marina in the distance - one of the prettiest areas of Dubai

 Of course I made sure to get a photo of me up the top. My favourite was with a handful of skyscrapers in the forefront and then the vast desert as the backdrop

After spending quite a bit of time at the top and pottering around the mall I headed out through the 'village' to the taxi rank.

All in all it's been so lovely to have this little stop off in Dubai, and I think in hindsight it's going to help with the jet lag. Although I wasn't very happy in the airport, I was just tired and wanting to get back, now I've been in Dubai I think it's pretty cool I got a 'free' holiday in Dubai out of my flights!

For now I can't wait to get back to England to see everyone, celebrate Lydia's first birthday with her and see my mum's face when I surprise her by turning up!!

Sky Park

Today was all about the Marina Bay Sky Park. I couldn't decide whether it'd be better to go up during the day, so I could see everything, or at night since I adore the evening in the city. So, I did the only logical thing and went up twice!

The view was even better than I was hoping.

I zoomed in a little on china town as I love how it's nestled next to the towers of the financial district with the river cutting it off from the colonial region. 

obligatory photo of me and the view!

On the other side were great views over the gardens, including the two conservatories 

and a shot over eastern singapor

I was a little mesmerised by the boats just outside the reservoir. I saw them when I last landed in Singapore on my way home for Christmas from the airplane and something about seeing a working port is just really interesting… I've never seen so many ships in my life! And they dot the entire coast all the way to the horizon

Anyway I spent a good portion of the day pottering about Singapore, just enjoying the city. I did go back to the merlon as I realised after I went through photos I forgot to ask someone to take a photo of me and the lion and I kind of wanted one. 

Ignore the fact I'm wearing my sunglasses…

After pottering about I popped on some make up and headed back to Marina Bay Sands to attempt to get into the 'Sky Deck'. This is a club on the 57th floor with views over the city and it's right next to th pool which i wanted to see. 

There's quite a strict dress code, and there's normally a door charge which I didn't want to pay. Anyway I got in, and I didn't have to pay the $20 to get in as the bouncers were lovely to chat to! :)

I managed to get over to the glass railing and enjoy the sun setting over singapore 

I had to be ruthless to cut down the amount of skyline/sunset photos I uploaded - they are all so beautiful but I think these three may be my favourites, partly because you can see the different stages of the sunset. 

 I love this photo (perhaps because it took several attempts and my heart was in my mouth as I placed the bottle on the edge when it was so windy)

I'm so glad I didn't have to pay the door charge as my little bottle of tiger beer was $22! That's over £10… now I don't normally drink beer but I'm pretty sure that's expensive… 

The infinity pool of which there are hundreds of photos circulating online. You can only go in if you're staying at the hotel (2 guys who were in my hostel booked a room together purely so they could go for a dip) Got to say, it was pretty cool.

On my way back to the hostel I took my usual walk along the water front - where you can get the best views of the CBD and found a performance going on! I keep forgetting because it's chinese New Year there's some sort of performance every night, I've caught a few, but this one was my favourite evening. 

The dancers were hypnotising, and as such I only have one or two photos as I was too caught up in the various dances to even think about taking photos!

(I think this particular dance was my favourite)