We welcomed the new year in San Francisco.  We were there for one night only, and had dinner at around 6:30PM at Alioto's in Fisherman's Wharf, it's a well-known fine dining Italian restaurant.

We were surprised when we saw the bill - nope, not the price of our dinner, we expected it will be a little steep, we were surprised to see HEALTH TAX there.  When asked, the waiter said that this is to fund the politician's pet project - to provide healthcare to those who can not afford it, only in San Francisco.  (That's on top of the usual tax of 8.??% of the bill) So for those who are thinking about moving and can not afford healthcare, there you go, head out to San Francisco.  To those of you thinking about visiting the city, make sure you save a lot before you go, because the hotels will charge you $39 for parking and a Parking Guest Tax (it could be a percentage of something, but we were billed $5.46 for that), also there is an Occupancy Tax ($16.66 for our one night stay there) and CA Tourism Tax for $0.08.  OR you can get a hotel OUTSIDE San Francisco and drive in to the city to do your usual touristy thing.

It will be a long long time, if at all, that we will be spending a night there.  If ever we go to take my cousin and niece, it will be a day trip and for sure we will be taking food and beverage with us.

I forgot to say, the firework was ok.  I can't rate it as we were at the wharf when the fireworks started - probably about 2 miles away?  AND it was very foggy, so from our vantage point, we can only see part of it.  The bottom was hidden by the buildings, the upper part by the fog.  It was good nevertheless because we spent it with each other.