San Francisco

[Auryn]

Got gifted a 4 night trip to San Fran at the end of this month.

Any suggestions or recommendations??

We will not have a car- flying into SFO and taking a taxi to the hotel near Chinatown- we will be on foot or public transport the whole time.
I definitely want to do Pier 39 to see the sealions
not interested in going to Alcatraz- at least not on this trip.

Hoping to find some great costuming and fabric shops and eating some good dim sum and mexican food.

Any fantastic food recommendations are welcome- especially for food trucks and dessert places.

What say you??

[Lady Renee Buchanan]

Don't have any specifics, but whenever we go to San Francisco, we walk around in Chinatown and look for restaurants that have no tourists (or close to none), and find where the locals go.  One of the best meals we had there was in a little restaurant, no ambiance, nothing to look at, but we were the only non-Asians there, and most of the people, including the wait staff, didn't speak English.

Good things it's very easy to impersonate a chicken - and they all understood!

[scarletnyx]

Don't have any specifics, but whenever we go to San Francisco, we walk around in Chinatown and look for restaurants that have no tourists (or close to none), and find where the locals go.  One of the best meals we had there was in a little restaurant, no ambiance, nothing to look at, but we were the only non-Asians there, and most of the people, including the wait staff, didn't speak English.

Good things it's very easy to impersonate a chicken - and they all understood!

When my husband and I went to San Fran on our honeymoon, we went in the "Tourist" start of Chinatown, and came out clear on the other side. The first few blocks are your typical sellers hawking wares stuff, but after you get past that you start to see things like Lady Renee is talking about. We ate at a few places ( one was an interesting ice cream/pastry maybe place ) where they either could understand but not speak english, or had no outright idea what we wanted. We pretty much pointed at stuff that kinda sounded good, and we were not disapointed. Also! Check out Japan town - they have a really awesome mall with a few dollar stores in there where you can get Bento box sets for around 20 bucks. Thats the bag, the actual box, and the forks/chopsticks. We looked like fools I bet freaking out over that stuff, but I did finally get some Pocari sweat!

Alcatraz was -packed-, and actually wasn't a prison for too long. If you like looking at old cement, feel free. Otherwise, it's a miss. Angel Island, however, was the "Ellis Island of the West" and has quite a bit of history to it. It is also a stunning natural park, with camping and go kart tours where they talk about the Asian immigrants who were processed through there. They were subjected to horrible racist practices. I can't find it right now, but I remember seeing a photo of these three or so Asian women sitting on a bench in wonderful, high end kimonos holding buckets of their own "leavings" in their hands. The belief that Asian ate raw pork lead to the other belief that they all had "worms". Here's a link ( and sorry if I rambled, I -love- Angel Island.) http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/angel/gallery.htm

Fisherman's Wharf was fun, and the Bay Aquarium was about as hippie as you can get without going down Haiught street.

So yeah, there's my two cents! Now, we were staying about two blocks from Fishermans Wharf, but we had no issue finding a cab ( And of course the trolleys! ) to take us/get us back home the few times we got turned around. The fares weren't terrible either. I hope you have fun!

[Auryn]

Thank you both for sharing.

Honestly, Alcatraz isn't even on the list for us.
Maybe if we come back on another trip we might try the night time tour. There is just something incredibly morbid and non-historical to me- its not like touring a 500 year old cemetery in europe or something.

I know I can't afford anything in Britex, so Discount Fabrics it is
So far we have a couple of green markets to check out, japan town, chinatown, discount fabric and hopefully the Marin Headlands on sunday when the bust is on.

I have a feeling we are going to be eating A LOT on this trip .