We start out by having breakfast at the apartment, and then head out to grab some Starbucks. We walk over to Union Square, which is only a few blocks away. While we're there, we stop at what I consider the promised land for my wife - the flagship store of Williams Sonoma. I also realize that my wife brought a jacket with her that was way too heavy and warm for San Francisco, so we head to Macy's of all places and snag a great deal on a North Face fleece jacket for her. While we're there, I grab a new North Face jacket and gloves as well since I was well overdue for a new jacket. Go figure, we buy new coats in San Francisco of all places. We drop the purchased wares at the apartment, then head back out. We walk up through Chinatown and grab lunch there. Next, we stop at the famous City Lights bookstore (http://www.citylights.com/) which was nice, but not my favorite bookstore ever. For a change, we decide to walk down Columbus Avenue, heading towards the bay. We walk through the Italian neighborhood of North Beach, which is far better than Little Italy in NYC.
We have a leisurely walk over along the bay around the marina and over to Fort Mason, which we never really explored before. Here, I found a new book promised land for myself in San Francisco when headed into Book Bay Fort Mason (http://www.friendssfpl.org/?Book_Bay_Fort_Mason) and I bought (as usual) way too many books, but I did find a new "I must now always go to this bookstore" bookstore for San Francisco. After, we wandered around Fort Mason a bit. A little tired, we decided to head back towards the number 1 tourist trap in San Fran, Fisherman's Wharf.
(My new favorite bookstore is located behind a giant lampshade)
While the whole area is a complete trap for tourists, there are two place one must stop when go there. And no, I'm not talking about those sea lions you heard about because really, it's kind of stinky there and when we passed by, there were all of 6 of them there. No, the 2 must stops (for us at least) are:
- Boudin's Bakery (http://www.boudinbakery.com/) - My wife digs the sourdough bread, and this is probably the best place to get it, no matter how touristy it is.
- Musee Mechanique (http://www.museemechanique.org/) - A free museum of what one would consider to be the oldest arcade games around - before they went all video like, they had machines where you'd put a quarter in and odd things would happen. One bonus, they also have classic arcade games there, and I played me some classic San Francisco Rush and the original Star Wars Arcade. My wife got in on the deal and played her some Centipede.
An example of a classic machine
After getting our fill of old arcade games and sourdough bread, we decide to walk down The Embarcadero towards the Ferry Building which we keep seeing on the Food Network, we figure we'll eat dinner there.
However, as we're walking, I see a place called the Fog City Diner, which is a restaurant name that has literally been sitting in my Outlook Tasks for a decade (through various upgrades in case the geeks out there are wondering...). Someone had recommended this place to me before my first trip there in 2000. This seemed like one of those random things that happens to me that we had to take advantage of.
The Fog City Diner (http://www.fogcitydiner.com/) was not your typical diner. It looked like an old fashioned diner, but it was a bit more upscale, and apparently is a place where one should make reservations. Luckily, in most restaurants, you can almost always get a seat if you agree to sit at the bar/counter where they have the same menu. In this case, we sat at the counter, and I had me a breakfast hamburger, which was a hamburger with egg and seemingly everything else. Not a bad meal, but most importantly I finally got to this place after a decade.
After dinner, we continued down The Embarcadero to the Ferry Building, which is really a ferry terminal with a whole lot of upscale food places. (http://www.ferrybuildingmarketplace.com/). Unfortunately, when we get there, the place is packed with young single annoying people having a mass wine tasting. (Those who are single and young that are reading this, I do not mean you). I say annoying because the place was packed and it was essentially a building filled with men and/or women trying to get lucky. For fun, my wife and I would check out their pickup lines to see what flies these. Now, I'm not an old married guy, but I've been married for almost 7 years, with a 9 (!) year courtship, so one might say I've been out of the loop for a while. However, I was still not impressed.
This part was not a total wash as we did stop at Boccalone Salumeria (http://www.boccalone.com/index.cfm) where we picked up a few salami samplers, which contained some of the best sliced meats one will ever have.
Tired, we finally decide to head back to the apartment to get some zzzzz's.
