The Golden City (Part 2)

As promised, here is PART 2 of my San Fran blog post!

DAY 3

We decided to rent a car for our third day in San Francisco. Since we wanted to stick with a pick-up and drop-up location that was within walking distance to our hotel, we were very limited with our selection of car rental companies. Being one of only two companies that fit our strict criteria, we went with Alamo.

Spoiler alert: Unfortunately for us, we didn't realize that Alamo had two locations by Union Square.

Yes, you guessed correctly. We showed up to the wrong location and waited in the check-in line for a good half hour only for them to tell us that we were supposed to pick up our car at their location on O'Farrell Street, not Bush Street. After some friendly negotiation, the woman at the counter agreed to give us a car at the same rate from their location. However, she warned that the only vehicle they had available was a pickup truck. Not wanting to go through the hassle of walking to the other location and potentially standing in line all over again, we agreed to make do with the pickup truck. I was so happy (happy, with a side of guilt) that I wasn't going to be the one to drive it. Good luck Sameer!!! The pickup truck turned out to be a white pickup van. We were so stoked ... not! But, a car is a car and we only needed it to get around for the day. The only real setback was that it restricted our ability to park in the smaller spots along the street.

At least the van was new (or smelled like it) and looked kind of sporty.

And it had a Utah license plate!

Once we picked up the car, we headed over to the Haight Ashbury area (aka The Upper Haight) in search of the breakfast/brunch restaurant that I wanted to try - Zazie.

Top - Foutainbleau scrambled eggs & Bottom - Albert poached eggs.
Stay tuned for my my post about Zazie on my food blog!

After eating, we wandered around the Haight Ashbury area to see what all the buzz was about. The district is well-known for being the centre of the 1960s hippie movement / "Summer of Love" era. As we walked around, it was evident that much of the neighbourhood had been substantially modernized. Still, the presence of colourful murals and kitschy vintage stores were enough to preserve lingering hippie vibes.

Next on our itinerary was the Painted Ladies. The term "Painted Ladies" was first used by authors Elizabeth Pomada and Michael Larsen in their book Painted Ladies (surprise surprise) to describe Victorian houses in San Francisco. Now, the term is widely used to describe Victorian or Edwardian houses; specifically those that are painted in three or more colours to enhance their structural elements. We drove over a few blocks from Haight Ashbury and parked on Hayes Street to walk over to Alamo Square Park. The park was actually closed for maintenance work, so we couldn't walk through it.

The houses faced a yellow-tinged, grassy hill that was rather unsightly at its current state. In all honesty, the view was a bit underwhelming. The rowdy adolescent crowd that we encountered likely had something to do with that. Nonetheless, we took in the visual and appreciated the houses for their iconic essence.  I am almost certain that the view of the houses would've been much better from further up the hill in Alamo Square. I'll have to test out my theory next time I'm back in San Fran.

I know you're probably sick of seeing pictures of this bridge by now ... but, here's another one.

Onto to the Golden Gate Bridge!!! I would have to say that this was the highlight of the trip for me. From the Painted Ladies, we drove north to Crissy Field to get a hold of some rental bikes. We rented a couple of bikes from Sports Basement. Sports Basement is located right next to Crissy Field and has a huge array of sports apparel and equipment for purchase and rent. Being not too knowledgeable about bikes, we went for the most basic type they had - Hybrid/Comfort. They rent bikes out for a minimum of 3 hours at a time ($24/3 hours). They provide you with helmets, storage pouches, and bike locks for free! After about 15 minutes devoted to changing my wardrobe and feeling insecure about my cycling abilities, we were on our way! We biked along Old Mason Street, then crossed over to Lincoln Blvd that eventually connected to the bridge. There was a good amount of uphill leading up to the bridge that reaffirmed the fact that I am not a trained cyclist. I walked my bike up most if it. 

We were both very excited at the prospect of biking across the Golden Gate Bridge. It obviously wasn't a Tour de France-like undertaking, but ... SO COOL!!! It was a tad difficult to get started because of all the pedestrian traffic at the beginning of the bridge. Luckily, the congestion seemed to dissipate as we got closer to the middle and it was smooth sailing (or should I say biking ...) from there. Once I stopped having to concentrate on dodging pedestrians, I started being able to enjoy the view. And the view was spectacular! Our original plan was to cross the bridge and bike down to Sausilito. However, Sausilito was another 3 miles from the bridge and our stomachs got the best of us. We decided to abort our Sausilito mission and ride back across the bridge to get some food.  

We stopped at Causewells for a very late lunch. It was around 4 pm by the time we sat down and we were the only two people in the restaurant. To our pleasant surprise, the food was very tasty!

Stay tuned for my post about Causewells on my food blog!

Our last stop of the day was at the Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District. I had seen numerous pictures taken by the Palace and looked forward to snapping some artistic photos there myself. Many descriptions of the landmark depicted the structure as being situated alongside a "swan-filled lagoon". To my disappointment, we did not see a single swan. BUT, the Palace was just a picturesque as I imagined. I can totally see why it's become a top destination for wedding photos.

The Palace was designed by Bernard Maybeck and was first constructed as a building to display and house artwork in the 1915 Panama-Pacific Expedition. Alongside the Palace of Fine Arts, other exhibit palaces were also constructed for the purpose of the Expedition. However, they were demolished once the Expedition was over. The Palace of Fine Arts was protected from demolition as a result of its popularity. However, as a result of significant vandalism and its unstable structure, the Palace was completely demolished and rebuilt in 1969.

On our way back to the hotel, our U.S. phone ran out of battery. We realized that the battery had been completely drained from our constant reliance on Google Maps throughout the day. It was about 5:30 pm at the time, so we were not too panicked since our car booking confirmation indicated that we didn't have to drop off our car until 7 pm (or so we thought). Fortunately, we somehow managed to head in the right direction, even in the absence of Google Maps. After stopping to ask for directions a gas station, we finally made it back to Alamo. We pulled our car into their parking garage right at 6 pm ... and to our shock and utter relief, we realized they actually closed at 6 pm! THANK YOU UNIVERSE FOR LETTING US GET BACK JUST IN TIME. We seriously thanked our lucky stars for helping us dodge a bullet. The thought of having to pay for an extra day of car rental (at an increased price from $69/day to $140/day) and having to squeeze through traffic in the pickup van for another day was enough to make us cringe. On that note, we grabbed a quick bite at the Westfield Mall food court and headed back to our hotel. We had enough excitement for one day.


DAY 4

Since this blog post is long enough as it is, I will keep day 4's debrief relatively short. Day 4 consisted of more wandering and shopping around Union Square. We checked out of our hotel in the morning and left our luggage with the concierge.

We had breakfast at Blue Bottle Coffee. We walked by this place on our first day in San Francisco and saw a big line up outside, so we wanted to go back and try it. The baked eggs we ordered were delicious. The New Orleans ice coffee is apparently really popular. We didn't order it that day because it was really chilly outside and I was more in the mood for a warm cappuccino. Can someone please try the New Orleans and tell me how it is??? 

Top - Tunisian Baked Eggs; Bottom (left to right) - Cafe Latte & Cappuccino. 

As an early-afternoon snack, we circled back to Mint Plaza (which is where Blue Bottle Coffee is) to try the Bolw'd Acai food truck that we spotted earlier on. Yelp seemed to indicate that their acai bowls and poke bowls were a real hit. Sadly, they were sold out of their Great White poke bowl by the time we went. I was really sad about this and yelled "NOOOO" out loud as I read their "Sold Out" sign. I ordered their Original Gangster acai bowl instead.

For our last meal in the city, we went to Box Kitchen. This was the restaurant we were searching for on our first day when we naively entered into extremely sketchy territory. SO WORTH IT.

Stay tuned for my post on Box Kitchen on my food blog!

Since there wasn't any seating left at the bar next door (they share seating with Box Kitchen), we brought our food to the mall food court and ate there. We inhaled the food, as we didn't have much time to spare before we had to head to the airport. After we picked up our luggage from the hotel concierge, we hopped on the BART and took the train back to the airport. Bye bye 'Frisco!

----

I've already started making my list of things to-do for my next trip back to San Francisco:

- Alcatraz
- Sausilito
- Golden Gate Park
- Ghirardelli Square
- Bourbon & Branch / Wilson & Wilson
- Trolley to Castro
- Revisit the Painted Ladies and take a picture from Alamo Square Park
- Smuggler's Cove (The inside of this bar is decorated like a multi-story pirate ship. They also have world-famous rum drinks and an extensive cocktail menu.)
- Tommy's (This Mexican restaurant is renown for their margaritas and 100% agave tequila drinks.)
- Mikkellar Bar (Apparently one of the city's largest beer halls.)

The Golden City (Part 1)

'FRISCO <3

Our trip to San Francisco flew by just as quickly as it came. Sameer and I had booked our tickets back in April for $290/person (including taxes) round trip with Air Canada. However, any savings we might have reaped from the relatively cheap plane tickets were cancelled out completely by the stupidly expensive rates we paid for the hotel. I know hotels are expensive in San Fran, but still ...

Travel Tip: If you Google the name of an airline (works for most major airlines), you will be able to search for flight prices through Google. You can click through the price calendar to see what average flight prices are for departure on a specific day. Lower than usual flight prices will be highlighted in green on the calendar.

DAY 1

We had a 6:15 am flight from Vancouver to San Fran. It was pouring like crazy that morning, so I couldn't wait to get away from the rainy weather. The flight was only 2.5 hours (but felt more like 2.5 minutes considering we both slept the whole way through). From the airport, we decided to take the quickest, cheapest, and most direct route to our hotel using BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit). It took us about 35 min to get to our hotel.

We stayed at the Pickwick Hotel, which was conveniently located by Market & 5th Street by Union Square (right by the Powell BART station). Considering that we would be using public transit for most of our trip, the location of our hotel was key. Our room wasn't ready yet when we got there, so we left our luggage with the concierge and decided to do some exploring.

Before we got too carried away, we stopped at Cafe Venue (on 5th Street) for some quick breakfast. I forgot to take pictures because I was too hungry and tired. We each ordered a plate of the Eye Opener and a cup of their organic Guatemalan coffee. Once our bellies were filled, we continued our self-guided tour of the busy streets of San Francisco ...

 Market Street & 5th Street.

Union Square.

We were so excited to be in sunny San Francisco and away from rainy Vancouver.

Initially, the idea was to take a picture of every heart that I came across. I gave up on that fairly quickly.

Since we were both recovering from a cold (AND since we woke up at 3:50 am that morning), we took it easy the first day and spent the majority of the day checking out the stores around Union Square. I must say, Union Square has to be one of the most centralized shopping areas in the world. From Macy's to Bloomingdales to Saks to Barneys to the individual stores around the Square ... you could probably find any label you're looking for, all within a couple of blocks. Sadly, we had to exercise some self-restrain as the currency exchange was not exactly optimal. 

The Cajun lobster roll and Lobster Mac & Cheese at Lobster ME.

Earlier in the day, we came across woman in an elevator who was holding a delicious-looking (I am purposely emphasizing word "looking" here) lobster sandwich. Me being me, I needed to know where she got it from. She pointed us in the direction of Westfield Mall ... and off we went. We ordered The Cajun lobster roll and the Lobster Mac & Cheese (obviously). I didn't notice the price until the cashier rang it up ... $33.60 ... yes, that's USD... and yes, WTF! Needless to say, I was a bit surprised considering we were at the food court of the mall. My only justification on their behalf was that there were some fairly large chunks of lobster. Aside from that, it was pretty disappointing overall. Neither the lobster roll or the mac and cheese tasted that great. To think of it, I don't even think there was any cheese in the mac and cheese; just cream and butter. As appealing as the picture may look ... NOT worth it.

Skip to a bit later (after a power nap and a couple more hours of walking around aimlessly) ... we had a casual dinner at our hotel's restaurant, SOMA Restaurant & Bar. To avoid getting any sicker, we called it an early night so we could be well-rested for the next several days.

On a side note, we discovered really quickly that 6th Street (south of Market St) is veryyy different than 5th Street (in a bad way). We discovered this by accident as we were looking around for a restaurant on Natoma Street. I will spare you the details...  but let's just say that we avoided going anywhere close to there at all costs for the remainder of our trip.

DAY 2 

To start off the day, we hopped on the F line streetcar and headed over to the piers. 

Seated comfortably at the very back of the F line streetcar.

We got off at the Fisherman's Wharf stop and walked a couple of blocks south to have breakfast at Hollywood Cafe. This place had amazing reviews on Yelp, so it was on the top of my list of restaurants to try. 

Stay tuned for my post about Hollywood Cafe on my food blog!

After breakfast, we walked over to Pier 39 for the bay cruise that we had tickets for. The Bay Cruise is operated by Blue & Gold Fleet and runs almost every hour from 10:45 am to 6:30 pm/7:00 pm, depending on the day. We couldn't get tickets to Alcatraz, so we decided to take the Bay Cruise instead. The cruise was both better and worse than I expected.

Better because: 1) the views of the city's skyline was amazing; 2) cruising underneath the Golden Gate Bridge was a lot more exciting than I anticipated; and 3) we spotted a number of humpback whales in the water.

Worse because: 1) the narration describing the city's landmarks the stories of Alcatraz were completely pre-recorded; and 2) it was very hard to hear the narration from the open top floor of the ferry.

One of a gazillion selfies that we took on the ferry.

Travel tip: The Bay Cruise tickets are usually $30/person, but we got ours for $25 at the San Francisco Information Center. The Information Center is located below ground level, right next to the Powell BART station. They have a bunch of other discounts and coupons there for various activities.

The ferry ride was followed by a visit to the famous sea lions at Pier 39. To our dismay, there weren't too many sea lions sunbathing on the day that we went. I recall the entire docking area being filled with them the last time I was at Pier 39 (about 3 years ago). Regardless, we spent a good amount of time there observing their hilarious antics. 

Next, we went for a 7D Experience!!! A theatre/ride-type experience where you wear 3D goggles to watch the screen and shoot targets. I was perusing through San Fran Groupons online before our trip and thought that this one sounded interesting enough to try. There were 4 different ones for us to choose from: Zombies, Gigamon, Los Banditos, and Road Fighters. Despite my reluctance, we went with the Zombies ride. 

The whole ride lasted approximately 10 minutes. To paint a better picture, that's 10 min of me tensing my whole entire body while screaming. I like the show The Walking Dead, but I'm not a fan of half torn-up zombies popping up suddenly in my face and yelling. At one point, I legitimately had tears in my eyes. It was a bit comforting to hear that the kids next to me were screaming too (granted they were probably 5 years old). Like a typical amusement ride, they took pictures of the riders and displayed them on screens at the end of the ride. I wish I had time to take a picture of mine. The ridiculous look of terror on my face would've helped to cheer me up on a sad day.

To celebrate our survival through a zombie apocalypse, we went to eat ...

Boudin Clam Chowder in their sourdough bread bowl.

... and eat ...

My first time trying In-N-Out Burger! It was okay.......

... and eat some more...

Dreyer's Waffle Cone ice cream - a scoop of Cookie Dough on top and a scoop of Dulce de Leche on the bottom.

We spent quite some time walking up and down Jefferson Street. We stumbled upon a really cool store that specializes in selling hot sauce - Pepper Palace. They let you sample the sauces ... which was part of the reason why I liked the store so much. I found one called The Butt Pucker - doesn't sound like one I'd want to try.

As the day went by, we noticed more and more "fancy" (obnoxious, in my opinion) cars rolling down Jefferson Street. This being one of them ...

And every time a bouncing car drove by, I couldn't help but think of the song California Love. 

Once we had enough of Jefferson Street, we walked down Leavenworth Street to check out the famous crooked street. When we reached the bottom of Lombard Street, we were greeted by a huge crowd of tourists who were all trying to get a picture in front of the street. We joined in and tried for maybe 10 min to get a good picture. After failing over and over again, we called it quits and walked back over to Fisherman's Wharf to catch the streetcar back to our hotel. Sameer had been meaning to try this spot called zpizza by our hotel. It was fairly late in the evening by the time we got on the streetcar, so we were on a mission to get to the pizza joint before it closed at 8:30 pm. We managed to get there just in time to order a pizza to-go. The pizza was so good! We were both disappointed that we didn't have time to go back and try some of their other pizzas. 

Initially, we were planning on going to Bourbon & Branch that night, but we couldn't get a reservation. Bourbon & Branch is said to be one of the most authentic speakeasy bars in the city. I've heard that you can buzz their intercom and ask to be put on the wait list, but we didn't want to walk all the way there to take the chance (especially since it was the weekend). Instead, we headed downstairs to the bar at SOMA and ended off the night there with a couple of drinks. The convenience of a hotel bar can never be beat.

... Coming soon ... The Golden City (Part 2)!