Touring San Francisco with Ryan and Laura

By Jason

Ryan and Laura came by about a week ago and we gave them our world-famous, patented tour of the Bay Area.  By which I mean we took the opportunity to go a few places we’ve never been before.

On Saturday we went to San Francisco.  We didn’t have a lot of specific plans, just a list of a few things we’d like to do.  We ended up wandering through Chinatown and eating at a Thai restaurant there.

Next we walked up Telegraph Hill to Coit Tower, which has great views of the bay, the bridges, and downtown.  It’s really worth going to, the neighborhood around the tower is built up and down the hillsides with a few parks put in place where the grade is too steep for cars.

From there we decided to walk down to the waterfront and see if we could catch a ferry or take a quick tour of the bay.   This was also definitely worth it, though Fisherman’s wharf is a bit too crowded and touristy.  The boat went out past the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz, with a corny prerecorded “Captain Nemo” narrator.  It’s funny, but he didn’t sound Indian to me.

We took a cable car back up the hill toward Chinatown.  Cable cars are really fascinating, they’re pulled by cables running under the street and have to be turned around by had at the bottom the the hill.

Finally we took a brief walk down Valencia Street in The Mission.  There are some interesting shops and restaurants there, but it’s not really a major destination in and of itself.  We met up with Ahan and Julie for dinner at an Indian restaurant.  Everyone was fascinated by the Bollywood music videos projected on the wall.

You can see more photos on my Flickr page.

I’ll write about our next trip, to Portola Redwoods State Park, a little later.