San Francisco had been a big destination highlight for me, and our first really big city that we were going to visit as a family. I think we forget every time that we like big cities in small doses. Small towns always win our hearts over, but we seem to always forget that when the bright and flashy lights of the next big metropolis shows up on the horizon.
Despite our adventurous entrance into the bay, we were still excited to get ashore and start making some good (and less dramatic) memories. We seem to always crave some good old fashioned junk food as soon as we’re on shore - fries, burgers, anything fried or convenient - so we started at an In and Out Burger right near Fishermans Warf.
For the next few days, we would bite off a different chunk of the city, usually with a good deal of walking and then hopping on a bus (very easy, very cheap and a ton of options) and of course we had to try the iconic trolly cars. Lucky for us, we got to ride a newly refurbished one that took us on a beautiful right straight to Chinatown.
This is where we started learning and relearning some hard lessons, on how to go with the flow and change course mid-journey. This wasn’t our original plan, but this was where we were dropped and we all had to alter our expectations of the day and find some joy in it. And did we ever!
It seems our kids have had much broader cultural upbringing than Matt or I ever did, and so they have a ton of exposure to Asian culture and were very curious and knowledgeable about a lot of the sites we were seeing. I loved seeing them peeking in windows of the lantern-lined streets and asking “can we get a pork bun? I’ve always wanted one!” My association with Asian cuisine as a kid was sweet and sour pork - the glowing red kind - and that was about it. But our kids were really into Chinatown. We found a cute little bakery that seemed just the right amount of dingy and seemed to be less frequented by tourists and more by locals and we filled a bag for $13 of fresh spring rolls, pork buns, Chinese donuts and all sorts of delicious food and we happily dug in together. It was such a good lesson for us all - head off the well trodden path and you’ll be surprised, usually in a good way.
In general, we have found the US to be very expensive, and that is mostly owing to our Canadian dollar right now, but also, just expensive! It seems most things are the same price tag as back home, or more, and then we add on the exchange (nearly 40%), and if we pay with a credit card, we add on another few percentage points. It really adds us, so we do our best to make our treats count. But I am also so glad at the amount of stocking up we did when we were home. Also, Mexico is just around the corner and we will try to save some bigger stock-ups until then.
Some big takeaways from San Francisco was that it is a city all on its own - it stands out from other big cities we’ve visited and we really liked it. The architecture alone was enough to make me love it there. I could have spent a whole day on an architecture tour - but I might have been on my own ;) Though the city was often shrouded in fog, we still caught glimpses of its scope, and it has a really pastel sort- of hue overall. When the fog did lift on our last two days there, we could finally see the whole city scape and wow - just a fun, retro, hip Californian coastal city.
The kids really loved the candy stores that seemed to pop up around every corner, and if not candy, then Boba tea shops. I loved all the houses - and I so badly wanted to walk into one and know it’s history, and Matt enjoyed the easy anchorage and that we started to meet people who are on the same path as we are.
As we departed San Francisco, after a max of 5 days in the Marina Park anchorage right near Fishermans Warf, we had a very redemptive journey out of the bay and beyond. The Golden Gate bridge was clear of fog and shining bright and sent us off in much better spirits than when we entered.
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