Since Archana moved to SF earlier this year, I had promised to come visit her sometime soon, so Alec, Carina, and I made plans a few months ago to finally visit! This was Alec and Carina’s first time in SF, so they wanted to do a lot of things, and boy, did we make the most of our time. We ended each day worn out after walking miles everywhere lol.
Wednesday, September 14th:
- Woke up early to catch our morning flight and arrived in SF around noon
- Met up at Archana’s apartment and had a lovely homemade lunch
- Since Archana had work, we walked to the Ferry Building and took lots of pictures of the coast
- Because we already ate lunch, we bought drinks from different places within the Ferry Building
- Then we walked another 25 minutes to Pier 39 and was overwhelmed by the amount of shops there
- The pier behind all of the shops was the only quiet area lol
- Walked around to find souvenirs for Carina’s family and ate some garlic fries as a snack
- Then we walked to Ghirardelli Square to meet up with Archana for dinner before going to the Palace of Fine Arts to catch the sunset, but she called and said that she was still working and wouldn’t have enough time to meet us before sunset. Instead, we should get dinner and go without her.
- So we grabbed dinner at Palette Tea House at Ghirardelli Square because their dim sum pics looked REALLY good. The food was great, but we definitely ordered too much lol.
- Dinner ran a little late, so instead of rushing to the Palace of Fine Arts to catch the tail end of the sunset, we decided to go the next morning to catch the sunrise with Archana. Instead, we explored the rest of Ghirardelli Square before finally going back to Archana’s place to chill before bed.
- Woke up around 5:30 to get ready to head out for the sunrise at the Palace of Fine Arts. Archana even made us breakfast for a picnic there!
- Walked around and explored the place as the sun rose and ate our breakfast with some pigeon companions lol
- The last time I came to SF, we also explored the Palace of Fine Arts with one of my cousins near sunset. Catching the sunrise was a totally different experience. There was no one around in the morning except for a few dog walkers compared to the evening which was full of people. It was definitely a nice change and also felt really accomplished. Like, we woke up, had a walk, and had breakfast before 8am. We started off on a good note!
- Archana left to go back to work, while we walked to Crissy Field East Beach and walked along the beach to take a bunch of pics of the Golden Gate Bridge in various stages of sunrise. At first, there was a lot of fog, but then the sun finally arrived and made everything brighter
- Alec and I got excited looking at rocks near the waterline and ended up getting our shoes wet from the tide coming it too quickly, so we rested at the parking lot near the NOAA Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary, which is near the end of the beach
- Because we were pretty far out from civilization, it took a while for an Uber to pick us up lol
- We then went to see the Full House House because Carina’s a big fan
- Then, we walked to and hiked up Alamo Square to enjoy the view from above. Also inadvertently saw The Painted Ladies, a historical row of Victorian houses shown in a lot of postcards and movies.
- When we were done exploring the place, we spent a lot of time trying to decide where to eat lunch. We eventually decided that we wanted to try new food that would be hard to find in GA, so we chose a Burmese placed Burma Superstar, which had a lot of great Google reviews
- Wow, the food was so good! And the drinks, too! And the waiter lol
- Then we walked to the Japanese Tea Garden and ended up buying the Gardens of Golden Gate Park Pass so that we could visit the other gardens (Conservatory of Flowers and San Francisco Botanical Garden) for the next three days with one pass. We planned on going to the Japanese Tea Garden and Botanical Garden for that day and maybe come back for the Conservatory of Flowers if we had time the next day
- The Japanese Tea Garden was beautiful! Unfortunately, the pagoda was under construction and wasn’t available for viewing, but everything else was aesthetic af lol
- The Botanical Garden was HUGE. There were so many different areas to explore. My favorite was Temperate Asia because of the bamboo pond
- We had already made plans to grab dinner at Hayes Valley and watch the sunset at Mission Dolores Park with Archana, but she was still working and told us to grab dinner without her again and she would meet us at the park. Instead, we walked around Hayes Valley and weren’t really hungry, so we changed our plans to get hot chocolate from Archana’s favorite hot chocolate place called Dandelion to drink while we watched the sunset and then get dinner afterwards
- What happened afterwards was the most hilarious and lucky walk we’ve ever done lol. In the total 20 minute speed walk from Hayes Valley to Dandelion, we hit every greenlight when crossing the street except for TWO times. The first few times we walked passed streets, we were just like “oh nice, another green light!” But after a while, we were DETERMINED to hit every green light, so when we were nearing one light that was red, Alec and Carina started taking the slowest steps possible so that the light would turn by the time they made it to the end of the street. I just about died laughing at the end, because there was a red light right a street before Mission Dolores Park, so we all made sloth steps until the light turned green, but then we became Sonic and sped through the yellow light that was about to turn red right before the park. It was so funny!
- Finally made it to the park and found a place to sit down and wait for Archana to catch up. The sun actually set in the direction behind us, and there were a bunch of houses in the way, so we didn’t really see the sun set, but it was nice seeing all of the volleyball games and random person DJing at the park
- We were getting hungry and cold sitting outside for so long, so we decided to get ramen nearby. I usually choose medium spice level and am disappointed by how not spicy it was, so I decided to go up a level and choose super spicy for my ramen. It actually was just the right amount of spicy for me! Now I know not to be so cautious and just get spicy or very spicy at most restaurants lol. Unless it’s Indian or Thai lol
- After that, we were full and tired, so we got an Uber and went home to chill for the rest of the night
- We woke up early (as per usual lol) and walked to Chinatown to get pastries at Good Mong Kok Bakery, which is known for their dim sum and pastries. Wasn’t expecting everything to be so large! But the menu wasn’t super helpful, so you kind of had to know what you wanted when you went to order or just pointed to what was available in front of you
- Carina ordered this soccer ball looking thing, but we found out that it had pork in it, so we explored the bakery across the street, AA Bakery & Cafe, which had a display case of all of their items and name plates and was a lot easier to order. She ended up ordering three giant pastries lol
- We walked to a park nearby to eat and took a lot of architectural and middle of the road pics lol
- Decided to brave the steep slopes and walk to the Cable Car Museum, which was super hot inside because they didn’t have any A/C and had open doors to the public
- After that, we walked back to Chinatown because we found out that there was a Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, which was a lot smaller than I thought but smelled great! They even gave everyone a sample of their fortune cookies to taste
- Since we were hot and tired and needed to use the restroom, we stopped at By Me Boba Tea for drinks and to rest for a bit
- We made plans with Archana to visit her for a tour of Salesforce Tower around lunch, so she told us to check out Spark Social to pick up lunch that we could eat at the Tower, so we killed time checking out all of the food trucks and resting because walking up and down those slopes all morning were no joke!
- We eventually ordered lunch and took an Uber to the building and met up with Archana. She took us for a tour of the tower at the top floor. It was really fancy and full of plants, which was super cool. Archana brought her work laptop and needed to finish a report, so I hangout with her after we ate lunch while Alec and Carina explored the Salesforce Park since I was tired and didn’t want to be under the sun anymore
- Afterwards, we went back to Archana’s place and rested while waiting for Suhas and Sarthak (Archana’s bf) to arrive since we had dinner plans at Rooh at 9. They brought a hilarious board game called Secret Hitler to play while we waited for our reservation, so we had a fun time learning how to bs our way to winning for our teams. I was a communist and Hitler for the last two games, and it was a lot harder than I thought trying to win the game lol
- Finally went to Rooh for some fancy modern twist on Indian food. This was the first time Alec, Carina, and I DIDN’T order too much for dinner during the whole trip, so we were pleasantly surprised about that lol
- We walked back to Archana’s place and chilled for a bit before Suhas went home and we got ready to go to bed
- Woke up early to walk to the Farmer’s Market! It was HUGE and had so much produce available! Too bad we were just looking for breakfast lol
- Alec and I shared a Nepalese combo meal of chicken dumplings and goat with rice. The portion was huge for just one person! I also got a muffin to eat on the plane lol
- After walking around one last time, we went back to Archana’s place to finish packing up and order an Uber to take us to the airport
- We finally made it back to Alec’s house around 8pm. Curse the time difference lol
- Carina drove home not long after we got back, and Alec and I ordered udon from Bonzu using Uber Eats because we were feeling something hot and brothy
- We went to bed early and found out that Archana messaged us around 11pm that Sarthak tested positive for Covid and that she was feeling symptoms, too, so to be on the lookout
- Spoiler alert: Alec and I got it a few days later lol. I’ll talk about our experience in another post. I think this one was long enough!
Other than that, SF was really fun! I just didn’t expect us to do SO MUCH sightseeing. Also, because I was about to start my period soon, I definitely got PSM towards the end and got irritated more often, especially when I was hot and in the sun. Need to remember to watch out for that next time we plan a trip around my period.
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