With passes in hand, we decide to head to the ferry building for the farmers market. Again, Grace challenged her archenemy public transportation. We were able to identify and board the F train without incident.
Yeah, they are up and on their phones
Waiting for the F train
We are boarding!!! Yeah us.
We jumped off at the Ferry building. The girls tried gluten free artisan bread, coffee, milk and Macaroons.
Inside the ferry building
Beautiful day at the Port
SF ferry board does more than give you the arrival and departure times. It also dispenses life lessons. I took a picture to prove I wasn’t the only one seeing this.
The girls and the train.
From the ferry building we walked up to California St. in hopes of catching a cable car, but that line appeared to be closed. We adapted and continued walking up hill, “Are we there yet?” To Chinatown.
The entrance to SF Chinatown.
We wandered the streets of Chinatown surrounded by action.
I think you will be ok without an umbrella today.
Down Grant Avenue
Down Ross Alley. “Are we there yet?”
We are here. Let’s make some fortune cookies. Let’s eat some fortune cookies.
This guy was in Memphis but he had been here too.
The girls could write fortunes and then put them in the cookies. It was pretty cool. The cookies also tasted great.
Katie getting her cookies made
The G-Money’s cookies are folded.
This is a plaque in Ross Alley. Zoom in and read it. Alleyways were created late in the 1870 as the Chinese were rapidly settling of SF.
I have video but blogger still won’t let me add it😢
From here we wandered up Washington street to Powell and finally over to Mason Street. Again, “Are we there yet?” Patients young grasshoppers, check out the view
Corner of Mason and Jackson waiting for a Cable Car. Check out the Transamerica building in the back.
Finally we are on the Cable Car. Grace and Kari grabbed the seats while Katie, Ash and I stood and hung on for dear life. It isn’t really that intense. I love riding the cable car in SF.
Look who is smiling at the top of the hill. Behind Ash is Alcatraz and the Bay to my right would be the “crookedest Street in the world” Lombard Street. Of note it is only a very small section that is crooked.
Out toward the bay and Fisherman’s wharf from our cable car.
The girls and the cable car. Grace is beating the tar out of public transportation right now.
One more time with feeling
Back at Fisherman’s Wharf the crew wondered “Are we there yet?”
“Dad, do you even know what you’re doing?” I just want a minute to keep my streaks alive.
We switched to an Uber and headed to.....
The Golden Gate Bridge. It was a beautiful day. Not much more to say.
The girls and the Bridge
Not bad either
Kari and Grace
Out on the bridge, Grace is starting to get nervous. Will it hold us up?
The happy couple, Scott and his backpack with Kari😁😁😁
The bridge schematic.
7 facts about the Golden Gate Bridge
1. One of the Wonders of the Modern World
2. Designed by Joseph Strauss
3. The US Navy wanted it painted black with yellow stripes for better visibility
4. Amadeo Giannini helped finance the bridge from his Bank of Italy which later became Bank of America. He was from North Beach
5. In 1987 for the 50th Anniversary the bridge’s center section sagged down 7 feet under the weight of the 300,000 people on the bridge.
6. The toll is as high as $7.50.
7. The bridge color is officially international orange.
Bonus:
Only 1 member of this family has ever run a 5K across the Golden Gate Bridge.
Back in the Uber “Are we there yet?” No, we have 15 minutes in this Uber listening to Gungam Style before we get to Washington Square for our North Beach food tour.
From the corner of Columbus and Union, our view of Coit tower.
In front of Coit Liquors we met our guide, Jimmy. We also met the 2 Brits and 2 Aussies on the tour with us. Jimmy was going to walk us around one of San Francisco’s oldest neighborhoods, North Beach which was predominantly Italian Americans back in the day. It is no longer near the beach as landfill has been used to create more space. A lot of the debris from the 1906 earthquake ended up in the ocean and ultimately moved North Beach away from the beach.
We started walking. “Are we there yet?” Yes, we are at our first stop, Caffe Roma. Some enjoyed hot chocolate, some enjoyed a latte, some Italian soda and I had a macchiato. We then went in and were able to see how they roasted their own beans.
The beans before and after roasting.
The roaster at Caffe Roma.
Next we had a meatball sandwich on focaccia bread. The sandwich was from Mario’s smoke shop just down the street. The bread was from the North Beach bakery.
According to Jimmy, not the friendliest team, but man can they bake bread.
From there we head to
Macchiarini art studio. They are a 3rd generation art and metal studio. Daniel and his daughter currently run it. They do large pieces and run ring design class for couples to design their own rings. We stopped in the studio and talked to Dan for a long time. I love behind the scenes stuff like this. I think this is where the girls started loosing steam.
Door art from Macchiarini
From here we wandered North Beach.
The Edwardian design of the buildings in North Beach
Cafe Trieste, supposedly Frances Ford Coppola wrote The Godfather 1 and 2 here.
In addition to food there was a huge Jazz scene and this mural commemorates Benny Goodman (top left) and Jazz
These plates are from Biordi art imports. Classic Italian ceramics. They were incredibly nice to the girls, especially Ashley and the nice lady discussed artistic ceramics from Italy.
We stopped by the front of the Condor. This falls under the category of sometimes you can just get famous by saying your famous. Feel free to enlarge to see the details.
We had a sandwich at Molinari. Sun dried tomatoes, Pesto, Salami. It was generally great.
We finished with pasta at Mona Lisa’s and Cannoli from a bakery down the street. We didn’t love the cannoli but the pasta was good. I told Ashley, “take the gun, leave the cannoli.” Nobody got it, I laughed for 2 blocks.
We did get some fudge here. It was great. We continued our extensive research into o chocolate by meeting and chatting with the chocolatier. She didn’t have the answers we were looking for.
Transamerica building from Columbus street as we try to head for the hotel.
The statue to Volunteer Firefighters donate by Lille Hitchcock Coit.
We head down to The Embarcadero to catch the F train. Along the way we saw this sign. I now believe it was a warning.
Do you hear the ominous music.
We finally get to Bay Street and stop for the F train. It is starting to get dark and a little cold but we have reached our destination next to Pier 35. We understand this train works and we are excited to get back to The Palace. The first F train stops and the conductor shrugs and keeps going. Grace looks confused and wants to know why we can’t get on. Katie reminds us that we should have taken the cable car like she wanted and Ashley rolled her eyes. 15 minutes later another F trains stops just long enough to tell us they are full too. Grace starts crying, think Nancy Kerrigan after she was clubbed. “Why, why, why”. We talk her down and wait 10 minutes for one more F train. You guessed it, FULL. Grace loses it, Ashley loses it, Katie even gets a little wobbly. We leave the platform, get an Uber and enjoy 20 minutes in traffic.
Finally at The Palace, Kari and Grace put their PJs on, Ashley and Katie go to the pool and I take my camera for a little night photography.
The Ferry Building at night
The Port of San Francisco
The Bay Bridge to Oakland
It gets less love but it is beautiful at night
The Ferry Building in B&W.
Back to The Palace, Kari, Grace and I went to the Pied Piper for some appetizers and a couple of beers. They didn’t go in their PJs. Then off to bed for the trip home.
A great day of adventure!!!!!! And tears 😭
