Awesome San Francisco
/If you missed our previous blog on San Francisco, click here to read it.
We picked up a San Francisco city map at the hotel desk and I’d downloaded a Chinatown Walking Tour from GPSmycity, so we were all set to start out on Saturday morning for a long day of walking and exploring.
On a crisp, but sunny autumn morning, we walked down Geary Street past Union Square which was all decked out for the holidays. This is the key shopping area of the city… retailers like Macy’s and Bloomingdales’s as well as exclusive, luxury stores like Louis Vuitton, Neiman Marcus, Sak’s Fifth Avenue and Chanel had dressed their windows to the nines. We window-shopped but didn’t buy.
Up the hill on Grant Street to Bush (San Francisco is all hills), we entered Chinatown through the traditional stone archway known as the Dragon Gate. A tribute to San Francisco’s Chinese community, the gate is known as Tian Xia Wei Gong in Chinese which translates to "All under Heaven is for the Public" or "The World Belongs to All" in English, and when used in relation to the Dragon Gate, it signifies the idea that the gate represents a path to shared prosperity and opportunity for everyone, not just a privileged few.
The Dragon Gate, the traditional stone archway entrance to Chinatown
Chinese lanterns and iconic lamp posts decorate Grant Street as we entered Chinatown
San Francisco’s 24-block Chinatown area is the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest outside of Asia. The streets are lined with shops, restaurants, interesting architecture and cultural attractions. Its unique atmosphere is a bit overwhelming at times with crowded sidewalks, the chatter of a spoken language we don’t (but wished we did) understand, vegetables, fruits and mysterious stuff we just didn’t recognize. Ducks hung from windows. Odd smells and aromas we couldn’t identify wafted onto the street. We strolled along, poking into shops, milling midst the crowds.
A must on the Chinatown walking tour was a visit to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory on Ross Alley just off Stockton Street. Though the shop has been around since 1962, we’d never visited before. We smelled the sweet aroma of fortune cookies before we spotted the shop. It’s a tiny hole-in-the-wall place, but fun and quick to visit.
It’s a manual operation. Two people were busy making fortune cookies while another woman packaged the cookies and managed customer sales. We asked and were allowed to take photos. We bought a bag of freshly made cookies for $5 and she threw in some warm fortune cookie flat discs which we munched as we continued on our way.
fortune cookie production at Golden Gate is a manual operation.
Good Mong Kok Bakery had been recommended as a great place to stop for a morning treat, but the line stretched out the door and down the sidewalk. We continued on to the Stockton Bakery, edged our way in and stared at all the offerings. A young, attractive Chinese woman came to the rescue when she saw our perplexed faces. She suggested the egg tarts or coconut buns. We bought the buns, found a nearby park bench and gobbled away… wow… delish! We ate ours before remembering to take pix. I nicked a pic from Lisa Lin’s Health Nibbles website.
Full of coconut buns and fortune cookies, we poked along going up and down streets, checking out the shops and colorful murals.
We continued up Stockton Street until we reached Washington Square. Established in 1847, it one of the city's first parks and was busy with walkers, soccer players and Tai Chi groups. The Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church stands regally opposite the square.
Beautiful Washington Square
We walked out of Chinatown, down Columbus Street and entered North Beach, San Francisco’s Little Italy. From Chinese shops and eateries, the streets were now lined with Italian trattorias, cafe and bistros. The light posts boasted the green, white and red colors of the Italian flag. We wandered through the North Beach fresh market with great view of Coit Tower in the distance then headed back to the bayside and Fisherman’s Wharf once again.
We got a great view of Alcatraz Island in the Bay. Formerly a notorious prison, it’s now a tourist attraction.
Alcatraz Island
At the Fisherman’s Wharf, we stopped at the Musée Mécanique, an unusual museum featuring the collection of Edward Galland Zelinsky. The collection consists of more than 300 items, ranging from orchestrions, coin-operated pianos, antique slot machines, and animations to small bird boxes and toothpick creations. Take a look.
Our final destination was the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Unfortunately, the Hyde Street Pier, a national historic landmark was closed for renovation. We toured the Visitor Center’s exhibits and walked down the pier as far as we could for views of the 112-year-old three-masted square-rigger, the Balclutha, the Eppleton Hall steel tug (1914) and the side-wheel ferry, Eureka, built in 1890 and refitted in 1922.
The ‘Balclutha’ three-masted square-rigger, the ‘Eppleton Hall’ steel tug (green hull) and the ‘Eureka’ side-wheel ferry at the Hyde Street Pier.
We couldn’t ignore the sign on the hill advertising Ghiradelli Chocolate Company, ‘gourmet chocolate making life a bite better since 1852.’ Though I’m not as much a chocolate-lover as David is, I couldn’t resist sharing a Ghiradelli hot fudge sundae with him.
How can you possibly ignore a sign like that?
We couldn’t, so we shared a Ghirdadelli Hot fudge sundae. I’d already eaten the cherry.
Still in a sundae coma after our Ghiradelli splurge, we trudged down the hill to the Market-Powell cable car turnaround at Fisherman’s Wharf. The hotel had provided us with free tickets, but our BART card would have worked, too. The line was long as was the wait, but missing a ride on the iconic San Francisco cable car was not an option. There are three cable car lines in San Francisco serviced by 40 cable cars.
We watched as cable cars arrived and were manually turned around on a giant turntable. Finally, it was our turn to board. It’s a fun experience although our inside seats did not afford the best views.
We stayed on till the end of the line at Powell Street, then backtracked a few blocks to the hotel where we collected our glasses of champagne in the lobby and pooped out in our hotel room for a quiet evening.
We had visions of doing so much more while in the city. Checking out the Christmas lights, walking down Lombard Street, climbing up to Coit Tower via the Greenwich steps, visiting the Presidio and Golden Gate Park… but alas, our energy was spent for the day and the weekend was nearly over. Only one thing to do… relax now and go back some time for another visit.