Just spent four nights in San Francisco. I came here when I was back in high school but it’s as foggy of a memory as the actual fog that comes into San Francisco (more on that later).
I was surprised to arrive in the international terminal. I love being at the international terminal in any airport. The thought of traveling to foreign counties is something I wish to do more. So flying from Long Beach is considered international or just that JetBlue is based in the international terminal. I’m okay with that cause the international terminal is by far batter than the domestic terminal.
Getting into San Francisco is easy with BART. I love cities that have great public transit into the city. I stayed at the Mosser hotel, which I read about through another AYCJer mentioned it on Facebook. After researching it, it seemed like a nice budget place. The location was right by Union Square, which is the shopping district of San Francisco. Turned out to be a great hotel.
I thought Seattle had a lot of hills. San Francisco is the king of hills. I found that out on my first full day when I walked from Fisherman’s Wharf to Lombard street. Looking a the map it was only five blocks or so. I can handle that. As I was walking, I realized it was all uphill!! I was huffing and puffing on the way up. Then I get to the bottom of crooked Lombard street and walked up the street to the top since I walked all the way there.
San Francisco is a very walkable town if you can handle the hills. One of the other ways to get around is the famous cable cars. I bought a 3 day all you can ride pass for the public transit, which included cable cars. It costs $20. A bus ride is only $2. So that’s a lot of bus rides. I wanted to get my money’s worth so I rode the cable car as much as I could. I rode it twice one day, and six times the second day. I rode all three cable cars lines. Sometimes I’d ride the car one way, see the other car coming, jump off at the stop and run and catch the other one going back the other way. When you consider it’s $5 per ride, one way, I know I got my money’s worth.
Riding it while holding on the rails felt like how I think a dog would feel riding in the car with the windows open and head sticking out. They love the wind blowing in their face. No matter how many times I rode it hanging off the side and especially in the front, I loved it.
I got to see a fortune cookie factory. It was more like a small room with four old Chinese people making fortune cookies. I was told they make 20,000 cookies a day in this tiny place! It’s so small that there’s just one line that goes in and it’s tight. There is another old man there to sell you cookies if you want. Or (my favorite thing about it) if you wanted to take a picture, you had to pay 50 cents. No joke. There was a sign for it. I gladly paid to get a picture as did many others in line. Plus the old man gave me a free cookie sample. Fresh made fortune cookies were amazing!
I did a tour of Alcatraz, which was one of my favorite things here. I did the first tour in the morning, which was recommended. Tours come all throughout the day and you can stay as long as you want on the island. So it can get crowded. Being in the early tour and being the first ones to get the audio tour headset, allowed me to be ahead of the group and see different part of the jails before other people. Got some great pictures that way. The audio tour is one of the best. It’s narrated by former guards and inmates. You get a true sense of what it was like there walking around and having them tell you about it.
I love a great view of the city so I did visit Coit Tower and paid the price of walking up another steep hill to get there. The view was worth it. I also tried to go to the Twin Peaks, which are suppose to give an even better view of the city. It was clear down in the city so I thought it would too up there. Nope. When I got up there, it was cloudy and so windy. I felt like I was in a different city. Five minutes ago on the bus it was sunny and clear. Now I felt like I was walking through a blizzard minus the snow. So now view up there.
I did get a great view from the Golden Gate Bridge. One option is to bike over the bridge to Sausalito and ride the ferry back. Very popular. I just walked halfway and walked back. Got great views that day and got a great view looking down at the water. Definitely not for the faint of heart. It’s really high from up there.
I enjoyed my time here. They had great food. Too many places for me to try on this short trip. Especially Chinese food, which I love. If I had more time I would have loved to have gone to Muir Woods and see the redwood trees. I would definitely love to come back and visit again.
