Aug 31, 2013 Last updated: 9/8/13 2:00pm PT
Back in ’95, the company I worked for wanted us to move to San Jose. Denise and I went on a exploratory visit in ’95, looking at the area and houses. We had very little time to sight-see, but we did make a drive through San Francisco. We only spent a couple of hours there and didn’t get out of the car much. This year we decided to go back and just see San Francisco.
Our scheduled 11am flight got cancelled. We didn’t find out about the cancellation until we got to the departure gate (the departures board gave no indication). There was a long line of people trying to get on the next flight. I whipped out my cell phone and dialed Southwest. I always read that you can reschedule over the phone and not have to wait in line. That wasn’t a good idea this time. The phone agent could only get us on a 4pm flight while the gate agent was getting everyone on the 1pm flight. I had the phone agent change us to the 4pm flight, just in case, but when we got to the front of the line, the gate agent got us on the 1pm flight. We boarded the plane, then found out the toilets were broken, so we sat and waited until they were fixed. It’s only a 2 hour flight to SF from Seattle, I know I can hold it that long, but nobody wanted to hear my opinion. We ended up delayed another 45 minutes.
We flew into Oakland (cheaper) and took the subway (BART) to SF. We stayed in the Union Square area and we used rails, buses and feet to get around. There are some big hills, so sometimes we’d take a bus up the hill and walk back. We never left the city limits, other than going to and from the airport.
San Francisco has the largest Chinatown outside of China and the oldest in North America.
We stopped in at a Chinese cookie factory…
…which is down an alley. (to the left of that group of people)
If I had noticed the guy with his finger up his nose when I took the picture, I might not have eaten the free samples.
The Transamerica Pyramid is the tallest building in San Francisco
Another view of the Transamerica Pyramid, with a streetcar and the fog rolling in.
Dinner was at the Utopia Cafe, which doesn’t sound like a Chinese restaurant, but it was, and it was pretty good.
We stayed at the Chancellor Hotel in Union Square. There are a lot of hotels here, so it’s very crowded and a little touristy. We were in a room on the 10th floor. The hotel did not have air conditioning (we knew this in advance). We didn’t think that it would be a big deal. It’s San Francisco, it doesn’t get warm there. Except when we were there. And by warm, I mean 74. Being in the heart of the city, we couldn’t leave the windows open all night, too noisy. There was a ceiling fan, so we were comfortable.