Since our Tacoma contract cancellation “fun” we have felt like we were constantly on the move, so it is nice to finally be in one place for more than a few weeks (hopefully)! For those who don’t know our current contract is a bit longer, 6 months, so we have been dreaming and planning lots of trips. We have been in Modesto for over a month and took our first weekend trip to San Francisco!
If you have ever been to San Francisco before you know it’s expensive… to live, park, and pretty much everything else. Knowing this and reflecting on our past parking stress in other large cities we explored new ways to get there. Thanks to some family friends that live in the bay area (Thanks Sandy and Shannon!) we parked outside of the city and took the BART in.
Friday
Once in the city we stayed at a beautiful Airbnb in the Nob Hill/Chinatown area. Although it was a bit more pricey than a hostel, it was less than a hotel and was in a very walkable area.
Our awesome Airbnb host greeted us at the door. She shared that she is from Shanghai and told us about some Shanghainese restaurants in Chinatown. We tried one of them and picked something off the menu we never heard of before: Kao Fu.
Kao Fu is type wheat gluten that was served to us marinated and as cold salad. It was cubed and is most similar in taste to tofu. We were pleasantly surprised and would recommend trying it. We also had amazing soup dumplings and Shanghai style duck with rice.
Saturday
We woke up early (out of habit, not choice) and found Patrick a local coffee shop. During this trip he was on the hunt for a new bag of beans for his weekday coffee. We tried several different spots and he ended up getting his beans from Sight Glass at the Ferry Building market.
Our food tour started at 10am and we were with an awesome group! There were people from all over the US and a pair from New Zealand. During our tour we explored Little Italy/North Beach. Our tour guide was great and has the best retirement set-up in my option – She works doing food tours just one day a week!
We had a lot of amazing Italian classics including a meatball sandwich, italian style pizza, and cannolis. As we wandered around we also learned about the local buildings, history of San Francisco and the local culture.
Post food tour we were full and ready to explore some more. We headed to The Ferry Building Market along the bay. The building was full of cool vendors and there were even more outside since it was a farmers market day. Although they are very different, it reminded us of Pike Place Market because of what cool specialty vendors living in a city brings.
We then decided to tackle the bus system and try to get to new parts of the city. The bus we took was packed. We ended up standing in a hot crowded bus for what felt like forever… After we explored a little but primarily just found a coffee shop to sit and rest.
We took yet another bus to work our way back to where we were staying. Still crowded and driving on crazy streets the buses unfortunately made Patrick very motion sick. Since looking at his phone made it worse I got the task of choosing a dinner spot … Sushi!
Grandeho’s Kamekyo is a self proclaimed eclectic sushi restaurant near Ghirardelli Square. It was delicious! While we were waiting for our food we found out the Sushi chef is in nursing school. He was super interested in our work set-up and we may have recruited a new traveler.
Last stop for the day was Ghirardelli Square. There were lines everywhere for Ghirardelli ice cream sundays. We chose to skip those lines and just buy some chocolate squares to snack on. It cost less and there was no wait. We also tried San Francisco brewing and before heading back to get some needed sleep.
Sunday
First stop: Brunch! We ate at Honey Honey Cafe and & Creperie. The line was out the door so obviously that meant it was good. We both had some awesome savory crepes and were ready for the day.
After attempting to catch a bus for over 45 minutes without luck we took an Uber to Presidio of San Francisco. We enjoyed walking along the beach and soaking in views of the Golden Gate Bridge. We were happy we went, but the travel time/expense was a bit much. For our next visit to San Francisco we will probably stick to downtown.
We both really loved our visit to San Francisco! Everytime we visit a city Patrick perseverates on how awesome it would be to live there. While I give him a hard time, I have to agree. Cities offer a huge variety of cool products, vendors and restaurants.
We are back in Modesto now and excited for our next adventures! Up next a trip to wine country and a week back in PA for our sisters graduations. You are almost there Annie and Lauren!!
Have enjoyed being an arm chair traveler with your adventures. Congratulations to Annie on your graduation. Time goes so quickly