Miami Beach-San Francisco

 This is the river Guayas as we are leaving Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Thanks to the generous help of a friend, we were able to buy plane tickets all the way to Asia and stay in the US 15 days. Thank you.

This is the city of Miami Beach, on an island off the coast of Miami.

 This is the view from our rental.

 Louis's new camera takes pictures in the form of drawings.

 This picture is the same as the one above.

Public signs are in 3 languages. The last one is Haitian Creole, partly derived from French.

 Miami Beach has a nice feel, it is pretty mellow, at least at this time of year.

 This is Lincoln Mall, a pedestrian mall with tons of fashion stores.

 South Beach is a beautiful place.

 

 

 It is busy on the weekends but not so much during the week.

 The water is warm and reasonably safe for swimming.

 

 

 

 Louis could spend his whole afternoon in the water, swimming in the waves and snorkeling for seashells.

This is the famous Ocean Drive by the beach.

 

 The style here is 1950s Art Deco. Nice.

 

  

 Louis is in heaven. Every day he gets to see some nice cars.

 The airport in San Francisco has interesting playgrounds.

 

This is Matt and Peter in front of what used to be their grandparents' house in San Francisco.

A movie of the green hill roll is available on youtube at "christelle day". Another generation of Days roll down the green hill!

This is a view of the neighbourhood.

San Francisco has an efficient and modern public transportation system, called Muni.

We met our friends Mike, Claudine and their kids at Matt and Deb's hotel, the Queen Ann. Matt and Deb arranged to come out at the same time as us. Thans guys, what an awsome visit.

This place used to be a girls' finishing school.

Mike and Claudine came out to visit from Sacramento just for the day. Very cool!

This hotel looks like the Strater in Durango, CO.

Alcatraz on the island in the background.

 This cable car was built in 1996 to replace old No. 52.

 

This is a trolley or streetcar.

San Francisco bought these trolleys in 2004.

The Embarcadero.

Foodstalls at Fisherman's wharf.

 Pier 39 is the busiest.

 The famous Painted Ladies at Alamo Square.

The entrance gate to Chinatown.

 This is the San Francisco airport. We left on time even though this was only two days after the plane crash.

We would recommend the EVA Airlines. Everything was as scheduled, service was excellent, the meals were better than at a restaurant in Chinatown, and both us and the luggage made it in Taipei with only 30 minute connection time.