Bright lights, City nights: Part 2

Ok. So we made it in one piece to San Fran and checked into our hotel, which was in a very convenient location downtown. Walked down and looked around to what we could find...a few doors down as H&M. So being the girls that we are...we went shopping. Haha. But of course! Found a restaurant that was still open and had a late night snack.

Next morning we headed out to be super touristy with a map glued to my hand. Stopped by the La Boulange bakery for some brunch before catching the famous cable car. Those things are always so crowded so we had to hang on for dear life to the side poles. It was def an experience, esp on those steep hills!

Egg fritatta!

Legit French bakery.

Shar is so cute with her Disney nerd backpack!!

Hanging on for dear life on the cable car!

 We got off at Ghirardelli Square where the first Ghirardelli shop/factory was and then we walked on to Fisherman's Wharf. I didn't realize there were so many piers! And they're all numbered really weird - not in order. Meandered down the shops and found a little trailer on a side street that apparently had good fish and chips as well as fish tacos. So we HAD to get some. Yes, they were legit!

First Ghirardelli store!

Fishernan's Wharf

The Codmother trailer where she calls everyone darling.

Fish tacos and Fish and Chips!

We saw a duck boat tour pass us so Auntie Beth and Baby wanted to go on one....so go on one we did!! They gave us quackers...so we joined the chorus of annoying -err- melodious quacking.These duck trucks/boats are amphibious so they took us on a land tour for about an hour all around the area and then half an hour in the water. It was so windy!! Actually it was windy the whole time we were in SF.

Getting our quacking on. Lol.

Awww. So purty.

Entering the water!

After the tour we waited in line for a while to get on the cable car again to Chinatown. It was neat to watch them manually turn the cable cars around while we waited. The oldest Chinatown felt vaguely familiar...I think all Chinatowns kinda look the same. Decided on some random restaurant to eat at...Four Seas...or something like that.

Oh, and yes, we did find Lombard Street, which is the crookedest street ever...but we couldn't get a good picture of it.
Went shopping again in the area that night and then stumbled upon a legit Thai place next to our hotel and was convinced by a customer to get a late night snack there as he said he would drive about 20 mins three times a week just to eat here...apparently that's a long time in SF....haha. Dude. We drive half an hour to go eat somewhere decent at school! Lol. Anyway. We were extremely glad we ate there b/c it was sooo good!!
It was so good that we went there for brunch the next day. Hahahaha.

Friday we used to car to go take a look at the Golden Gate Bridge. Which meant that I had to drive up and down those steep hills. It was very exciting actually and I'm glad to say we all survived. Haha.

Stopped at Crissy Park, Fort Point, as well as Marin Headlands, and went on the other side to walk a bit on the bridge itself. It's pretty impressive, so we took a ton of pictures. Haha. We kind of ended up on the other side by accident. I was supposed to stop on the south side of the bridge so we could walk on it, but ended up taking the wrong ramp and ended up driving across the bridge! So that's when we stopped on the north side of the bridge to walk on it and after that decided to go up to Marin Headlands to take a look from the top. Since there were no parking spots at the first place we ended up driving all the way up to the top and stopping there. Oh adventure time.

We're the Powerpuff girls!! Hahaha.

 After spending a good amount of time there we headed to Ike's Place to get some sandwiches. They were some pretty bomb sandwiches! Thanks, Neil, for telling us to go there!!

Totally vegan!! Whoohoo!!

Sometime ago, when I was in my Stumbleupon phase, I came across an article that had 10 cool things to do at different cities. One of them was for SF and it said to go to this park that had concrete slides at Eureka Valley. So we headed there in search for these slides. No such luck. I found Seward street alright, which was super small and short, and couldn't find it anywhere! We drove around and got lost...so I finally pulled out my phone and looked it up. Yeah, turns out that it's super tiny and in an obscure place. So we went back to Seward Street and found it. It really was small and in the middle of no where. The concrete slides, though, were glorious. They were super steep and Sharien even got air at one point. Haha. Best 5 seconds of the day!! We used pieces of cardboard to slide down and each went down a few times. So much fun!! It was def one of those non-touristy things to do, which is always exciting!

Since it was Auntie Beth's birthday, we decided she needed to try out The Cheesecake Factory. Shar and I went first to wait for a table, and since it's on top of Macy's we went down a floor and sat down on the Macy's sofas...haha. We waited for a really long time and finally went up to see why they hadn't called us yet...and apparently they called the wrong group or something. Then we had to wait for Auntie Beth and Baby to get there before they would seat us...but we couldn't get a hold of them. And then a different waiter sat us at a table anyway while we were waiting...and I finally got a hold of them and they were lost. And they were lost for a very long time, until I had to go down and find them. While we had been waiting for them, we told the waitress it was Auntie Beth's birthday, so at the end of our meal Shar and I were trying to convince Auntie Beth to pick out a cake or cheesecake...hahahah. So we finally did and she was so surprised when some of the waitresses came out to sing her Happy Birthday! Lol. And they even wrote it on the plate and put a candle in it. Hahahah. =)

Union Square

The next day I had to take Sharien to the airport so she could go back to Loma Linda....so sad!! Almost died a few times b/c I thought I had to exit when I really had a mile to go. Whoops.
We had gotten a box of macarons earlier b/c I've never ever had any before and I was determined to try some before I left. So right as we were entering the airport Sharien pulls out the box and starts biting each one, passing it to me to take a bite, and trying to name the flavors. We pulled up to her terminal as we were still doing this...it was pretty hilarious and I'm sure the two airport guys that were sitting outside of our car thought we were crazy!! Hahaha. At least my first time trying them was memorable!!

Went back and read, blogged, napped, and skyped with Niki while Auntie Beth and Baby went shopping. Later that night we tried out Osha Thai that was recommended to us by YuBee. It was def yummy!
Baby wanted to go shopping some more, so we did...thankfully all the stores close relatively early here...or else she would've been out all night. Haha.

We all got new sunglasses. Hahaha.