Written December 2018
Day 5
Since our original plan was to head back home today, we had to leave the apartment as it wasn’t available for 1 more night. So after a little leftover hotpot breakfast, we got ready for the day, packed up our car, and made our way over to the grocery store to drop off they key. From there, we drove a few blocks to find some free street parking to leave the car for the day while we roamed around the city.
We took a bus to the Market Street Trolley, where our plan was to take the Trolley out to Lombard Street, then walk down to the waterfront, and take a different one back downtown. Unfortunately, there was a labor day protest going on, so the trolleys routes were blocked until around 11am or so. We walked around somewhat aimlessly for a little…trying to see if we could possibly catch a trolley further up…but to no avail.
We ended up being close to Chinatown, so we walked around there for a bit again, and then noticed Golden Gate Bakery. It wasn’t opening for another 45 minutes or so, but there was already a line starting to form…so we decided to join in to see what the fuss was all about. We wound up talking with some older Chinese ladies, who said it was worth the wait, and that we definitely needed to try the custard tarts. Apparently, it was also mooncake season, so they suggested getting some of those too.
Chinatown
So we waited…and waited some more time after it opened as they could only take so many orders at once, and were trying to whip out egg tarts as fast as they could. We wound up only getting the egg tarts, because it didn’t really seem worth it to get the mooncakes as they were pretty small and pretty expensive. Was it worth it? Ehh…they were good and tasty…but I don’t know if I really needed to wait that long for them. Afterwards, we stopped by a dim-sum place to get a little more food…which wound up being free since we found $20 on the ground!
Golden Gate Bakery
By the time we finished, the trolleys were back up and running! We tried to get on at the stop closet to us, but unfortunately, it didn’t look like that would happen because the trolleys were too full going in the direction of Lombard Street. So we hopped on one going back to Market…and then got on line over there. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait THAT long to get on a cable car back up…and even better…we were lucky enough to be one of the first people on our trolley, so we got a great spot hanging out of the front of the trolley…and had a great view of the city…tourist checkbox filled!
Best spot on the trolley!
Powell/Hyde Line
Like most people, we got off at Lombard Street, so we could check out the crookedness of it and the view from up there. It was pretty neat, as you could see the Coit Tower and Alcatraz Island from up there. We took some pictures up top, and eventually made our way down the street to take some more pictures along the way… where we overheard an interesting guy go-on…asking his parents to take his picture in portrait mode and went on about getting the perfect shot with his jacket and shades on perfectly…. wow!
Lombard Street from up top and midway down
Bottom of the Crookedness
From Lombard, we made our way down to Fisherman’s Wharf, where we walked around the wharf a little bit and stopped in a few places.. We eventually made our way out to Ghirardelli Square where we shared a delicious sundae at their On-The-Go shop.
Making our way down
Fisherman’s Wharf
Art Galleries
Ghirardelli Square
After we finished up our sundae, we made our way to a nearby bus stop, to bring us as close as possible to Crissy Field, a somewhat nearby beach with a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was about a mile walk for us to get to the beach…and a neat looking place, so we made note to come back afterwards. The fog and clouds were already coming in, so we wanted to get to the beach fast…unfortunately not fast enough though, as it was already pretty foggy… and windy!! At least that was good for the windsurfers and kiteboarders out on the water. We didn’t stay there too long since it was getting cold with the wind…. just took a couple shots of the bridge and Alcatraz and called it good.
Crissy Field Beach
We made our way back to Palace of Fine Arts Theatre (the place we passed by earlier), and walked around there for awhile. It was a pretty place with some neat structures to admire along the walkways.
Palace of Fine Arts Theatre
After we had our fill there, we decided it was time to make our way back to our car…but first…we needed to find a bathroom. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one nearby, so we actually had to go all the way back to the beach….and then come all the way back again to get to a bus line that would get us close to our car…so that all took awhile. The bus ride was a little long too, as we wound up getting out pretty far from our starting point…but we eventually made it back before it was too late.
Now that we had our car, we figured we might as well check a few more tourist places off the list quickly. The first place we wanted to check out was the Painted Ladies and the Full House house. We had thought that they were the same thing…that one of the Painted Ladies was the Full House house….but when we looked it up, realized we got confused with the scene at the end of the intro where they show the Painted Ladies. So after we took a few pictures there, we looked up where the Full House house was, and made our way out there…which thankfully wasn’t too far. It..wasn’t really that special.
Painted Ladies and Full House
From here, we decided to make one last stop to check out the 16th Avenue Tiled Steps. This is a little farther out, but it was definitely worth it…it was super cool!! I just wish there wasn’t anybody else there, but thankfully, because it was getting into the evening, there actually weren’t a lot of people there. There are 163 mosaic steps in total, as the tiles beautifully depict a scene going from the sea to the sun. We made the walk up to the top, and from here it was a really nice view down into part of the city as well.
16th Avenue Tiled Steps
Other nice views from the steps
It was starting to get late now, so we started to make our way to our new airBnB. Because we booked it so last minute, it wound up being quite a ways out, on the outskirts of the city…so it took us awhile to get there…and it was a little confusing, so I missed a couple exits on the way. We wound up getting there, I think around 9…and were hungry! They were nice though and gave us some snacks, knowing that not many places would be open since it was Labor Day.
We wound up going to a Chinese Take Out place nearby…but it really didn’t look good…so we decided to drive back closer into the city, and wound up going to a Thai place with good reviews. We had their wings and some other dish….it was fine…nothing special. I think I got a little lost going there too. And driving back to our place….missed the exit again… it was a rough night driving! Looong day…but really fun…we were both really glad that we didn’t go home like we planned to today, as we got to see and do a lot! But it was now time to pass out!
Jump to:
The Dating Life of Norina and Jonathan 