We started our day at the San Francisco Ferry Building, an old transportation terminal for San Francisco bay built in 1939. In addition to all the shops and restaurants they have in the Ferry Building, every Saturday morning they have a Farmer's Market along the water. We walked around and drank hot organic cider as we checked out all the fresh food and tried to pretend like we were locals.
After the farmer's market we walked 8 blocks to Chinatown. I thought it would be full of Engish speakers and tourists, but I was surprised to hear lots of people speaking Chinese. Here's a picture on Grant street:
I thought the shopping would be better. Most of the shops looked sort of like this...
By far my favorite thing we did in Chinatown was a tea tasting at Blest Tea. We saw a sign in their window advertising tea tastings and decided to stop in.
We got to try five different types of tea out of very small bowls. My favorite was an Oolong Tea called Blue Angel. It had the most unusually sweet aftertaste that was so good. And according to the description it "gives you energy, moisturizes the throat, and is good for hangovers." Yummy tea that is good for hangovers. Yes, please. We bought a little 2 oz. bag of it so our tea tasting was free. Click here to check it out... it sort of a resembles a popular illegal drug...
Before we got to Chinatown Kevin was really excited about getting some real Chinese food, but when we actually got there, he almost chickened out. I'm glad we didn't. We ate at the Hong Kong Clay Pot Restaurant (we used the Yelp app on Kevin's phone to yelp pic a restaurant), and although it didn't look like much from outside it was really very good. I had the best hot and sour soup I've ever eaten.
We walked from Chinatown to try to catch the cable car and of course I couldn't help taking pictures of the neat buildings.
I even saw my new favorite store! Forever 21.
After waiting for the cable car for 10 minutes while they kept rolling by us completely full we decided to walk farther down the hill to where the cable cars were coming from. We ended up making it to the heart of downtown San Francisco, Union Square.
We got to watch how the cable cars turn around (see the video below). Technology from the 1900's. Pretty neat. It was a 20 minute wait and $5 each to ride the cable car, so after being in line for about ten minutes I was beginning to doubt whether it was worth it, but it was really fun once we got on. Kevin and I stood on the cable car platform and held onto the side for dear life all the way to Ghiradelli square.
We didn't eat any chocolate in Ghiradelli square, but we did go to a wine tasting.
For dinner we ate at Scoma's, which claims to have the freshest sea food in San Francisco. They bring fish from the San Francisco bay, into their fish receiving building, and then straight into the kitchen to cook for dinner. I had crab. yum!
After dinner we took the bus home. It was a long bus ride home after a long day, but public transportation in San Francisco worked out great. San Francisco has a free hotline you can call 24 hours a day and they'll tell you exactly how to get anywhere you want to go using public transportation. Here's the number. (415) 701-2311. You just tell them where you are and where you are going and they'll give you detailed instructions. And they're really nice. Every city needs this sort of hotline.
In summary. Day 2 in San Francisco = lots of walking and fun.
3 comments:
My favorite part of this entire post is the video of the cable car - not only was it interesting, but highly entertaining to hear someone say "I already took the picture...Jesus!" :)
Haha!! That was Kevin's dad talking to Kevin's mom :)
Looks like a great trip! Did you try Chinese Dumplings in Chinatown?
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