If you're going to San Francisco
Today was awesome! We woke up ridiculously early (by my standards, Eric was fine) and hopped on a plane to San Francisco. We arrived and headed to our hotel and then down to Fishermans Wharf. Our goal was to be to San Fran around noon and we got there right on time. We started our adventure by eating clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. YUM!
After lunch, we headed down Fisherman's Wharf to see all the fresh seafood. I'm a seafood lover, so that's always fun for me. Next, we headed to Pier 39. Eric loves the Sea Lions so that was our first stop. I can't believe how many sea lions there are at the pier. Our favorite was when they would try to push each other off the floaties. The wind was blowing crazy hard all day today, so we were thoroughly chilled by this point.
We headed into the shops at the pier. Our first stop was a candy shop. I LOVE candy shops, especially when they have saltwater taffy in more flavors than I can even imagine. We ended up buying 2 pounds of taffy despite my assurances to Eric that I wouldn't get too much (whoops).
We continued wandering the shops on the pier - our favorite was the hat shop, especially with the Kentucky Derby coming up in just a few weeks. We also ate mini donuts on the pier. I had these when I was in San Fran during high school and I've been dreaming about them ever since. They did not disappoint. They make them fresh and then pour sugar on them. Fat + sugar = happy Alison. My goal today was to eat a lot of sugar and I definitely accomplished that goal.
After we walked the Pier we headed to Ghiradelli Square. While we were walking we had an encounter with the bushman. I wasn't paying any attention and he jumped out and scared me half to death. My adoring husband laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.
Our plan for today was to spend all day at the wharf, pier, and Ghiradelli Square so we were supremely disappointed to have accomplished our all-day plan in 3 hours. Turns out eating and shopping don't take that long. We decided to head to China Town. It was only 1.3 miles away from the pier so we decided to just walk. The way to China Town was mostly uphill, which was a trek. It was a nice walk though (except for the wind). China Town was pretty fun. It was surprising how different the San Fran China Town was from New York. New York has much more bags and scarves and San Fran had more statues and clothing. We wandered through some shops but didn't end up buying anything.
We walked back to the pier and ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe - it was great as always. During dinner, we googled some of the top sites to see in San Fran. Several sites recommended the Coit Tower so we put it into apple maps and headed toward the tower. We got .2 miles away from the tower and then we ran into the stairs. Turns out the route we took takes 400 stairs to get to the tower, but the good news was that the garden surrounding the stairs was beautiful and smelled amazing. We started climbing and definitely got our cardio in for the day. With 174 stairs to go, Eric thought he was going to die, but we made it to the top. Unfortunately, the tower was under construction so we couldn't go in, but the views around the tower were beautiful.
We stayed by the tower for a while and then headed back to the pier to pick up the rental car. We needed to make a restroom stop and next to the bathrooms was this darling Christmas shop. I'm obsessed with Christmas so we had fun wandering through that shop. We might go back on Saturday and buy an ornament from that store - they had some really cute ones.
By this point, we were thoroughly tired after traveling this morning, and hiking to China Town and to the Coit Tower so we decided to call it a night. I can't wait to see what the rest of the trip has to bring!
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