This weekend that passed, I hopped over to San Francisco to spend Thanksgiving with my brother. After he moved out there, I joked how I would never come and visit (but I guess it turns out I lied).
Not that I hate California, I think I find it too typical when people boast about how they want to move to California. Moving to Cali is not an original idea and I’ve heard that goal from multiple people. I can’t help but kinda scoff every time I hear someone say it, but when my younger brother told me he was moving there, I thought, “ugh, not you too”. There are 49 other states – why that one? That question really goes to everyone. Maybe it’s the New Yorker in me wondering why he’d leave such a city that has everything he needs here. But then I think to myself, after leaving Portland, I fell victim to the east coast versus west coast rivalry. Being an east coast gal, I much prefer my coast.
Anywho, I started off the trip with a smidge of a stuck up attitude – not intentionally. But I snapped myself out of it because I obviously wanted to have a good time, especially with my brother. It was only the two of us spending Thanksgiving together from my whole family, so I didn’t wanna make things sour.
My brother had a list of areas to check out. He knew I’d appreciate the shops and boutiques and such, so we ventured out to Community Thrift Store on Valencia, as well as boutiques like Needles & Pens, Wallflower, Dcopper+, and Paxton Gate. Popped into some shops in the Castro like Whatever Store for graphic novels, and Dolma for Himalayan crafts. I also had a selfish moment by getting a tooth gem at Mom’s Body Shop on Haight Street. While we were in that area, I obviously needed to stop in Amoeba Records. I wanted to buy some records, but they’d get crushed in my carryon, so I didn’t even entertain the idea. We also stopped at Rasputin, which oh my goodness, they had an amazing collection of everything music & dvd’s – especially their television series section.
For the sight seeing, obviously we walked to Alamo Square and saw the painted ladies and other cute homes in the area. I’m in love with all the homes, especially the colorful ones. We hiked up Buena Vista Park and walked parallel to Dolores Park. Those hikes killed my calves.
We made a trip to the Fisherman’s Wharf, passing the sea lions of course. We also made an effort to check out Chinatown and Japantown. These were perfect places to pick up gifts. We walked into too many shops in Chinatown to remember which ones we visited, but I enjoyed Daiso and Maido in Japantown.
As for the food, we ate some Mexican at Cha Cha Cha & Hawaiian at Aloha BBQ. Tried out Burmese food at Burma Love and more Mexican food at Papito. Obviously had to have ice cream at Salt & Straw and Bi-Rite Creamery, and drank hot chocolate at The Crepe House. So much more food was had though.
We saw a ton of wall art & graffiti, which I’ll save for another post. I took tons of pictures. We saw the city in Christmas mode, and we obviously enjoyed the city from plenty of high hills.
I took a lot of photos on some disposable cameras which I plan on getting developed soon. Honestly, a lot of the photos may or may not be of the houses in the city, but we’ll just have to see!
Overall, it was an interesting city. Reminded me of a bunch of cities in one. The hills were torture, but walking around New York will be so much more pleasant for me now that I’m back home. Kinda sucks to have to go back to real life though.
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