One part of our vacation that Wes & I were equally excited for was San Francisco's Chinatown. We were both anticipating all the delicious food (although I didn't get to eat as much as I had hoped to), and I was pumped for all the shopping. We left the hotel early to get a full day of sightseeing in and realized as soon as the Uber dropped us off that Chinatown's sleepy shops don't open until 10am. 😑 We wandered around and window shopped for about an hour. We went into the visitor's center as soon as it opened to get a map and picked out all the things we wanted to see and do.
We spent most of our time just walking around and looking at all the murals. There were so many!! I also loved all of the decorations on the buildings. We got a little turned around, so I think we walked around the same blocks over & over again. LOL It got busy pretty quickly and we were soon surrounded by a ton of other tourists, as well as locals. It was so weird hearing snippets of everyone's conversations in Cantonese. I used to speak it fluently, but I'm embarrassed to admit that I've forgotten about 50% of it (even though it's technically my native tongue) 😅
We went into a handful of souvenir shops; got something for our house, my mom & stepdad, and that was the extent of our buying. I really wanted a pair of jellies, but the shop didn't have them in my size. 😞 And I'm not completely sure they were for sale; they didn't have a price tag and they were the only pair sitting on a shelf of slippers. I also wanted a zodiac stuffed animal of a Rat (1984, baby!! 🐀) but I couldn't think of a place to put it, so I passed on it as well. Travelling with just one carry-on bag (and no checked luggage) is not conducive to souvenir shopping. Wes isn't a shopper and I quickly discovered that all of the shops sell almost the exact same thing, so we didn't buy much. I think it was more fun to just walk around and look at everything.
There were a handful of things we wanted to see while we were in Chinatown. One was the Tin How Temple. I thought it was a tourist attraction that you could go into, but it's only open to members. It did look very nice on the outside, though.
After "visiting" the temple, we switched gears and headed for the St. Mary's Cathedral. ⛪ We got in at the tail end of midday mass. I'm glad we didn't barge in at the middle of mass or during communion. Wes isn't religious, and while I was raised Catholic, I don't practice anymore. We stayed toward the back while the priest finished up and then the church opened up to visitors.
The Cathedral was the first in the Chinatown area and it's endured some natural disasters. You can tell from the inside that it definitely is old and has been through some rough patches. There was damage to the ceiling and some stained-glass windows. But it is a beautiful church.
We were so lucky with timing the whole day. We got seated & served at the dim sum restaurant just before the lunch rush started, we got to the cathedral right as mass was ending, and we beat the line at the fortune cookie factory. I don't think we waited in line for anything. 👍
I normally don't like fortune cookies and give them to Athena & Zephyr when we get Chinese take-out, but the fresh ones from the fortune cookie factory were so good! 🥠 The fortune cookie factory was at the end of a very narrow alley. We walked by a few times and kept missing the turn into Ross alley. Ross alley is one of the notable ones in Chinatown (I think just because it's old). The factory was tiny! It had a gift shop at the front, the employees working on display in the back, then you make a U-turn and get a free fortune cookie on your way out. It was one of my favorite things we saw all day even though the "tour" took less than 5-minutes. LOL
I saw a Chinese American heritage museum on the directory at the visitor's center and added that to our list of places to visit. I also saw a bunch of signs for a Bruce Lee exhibit. For some reason I didn't put the two together until we got into the museum. The first exhibit (unrelated to Bruce Lee) was a textile exhibit. The dresses are made from shopping bags and some other materials--don't remember what and I also forgot the artist's intent. 🤷 I expected there to be some historical exhibits, but the rest of the museum was dedicated to the Bruce Lee exhibition.
I am aware of the cultural phenomenon and significance of Bruce Lee, but I haven't seen any of his movies all the way through, and I didn't know much about him as a person. It was cool to read up on him and see all the movie memorabilia. The exhibit also had some of his original artwork and writings. Wes likes Bruce Lee's movies and seemed to enjoy the museum.
We finished up Chinatown a few hours before our dinner reservation so we Uber'd to Japantown. 🎎 Our Uber was a Tesla, which I'm sure is completely normal but I was impressed. LOL It's probably the hippest vehicle I've ridden in. I didn't know how to use the door handles, so our driver had to roll down the window and instruct me. 😅 San Francisco is as hilly as everyone says it is and traffic was madness, so I am so glad we decided to Uber and walk everywhere instead of renting a car. Anyway, Japantown is basically two malls with a pavilion in the middle. One of the malls has a majority of the shops and the other mall has a majority of the restaurants (and the MUCH cleaner restrooms). We mostly wanted to go to Japantown for the Kinokuniya bookstore. It is the first one in the States. We always go to the one in Carrollton, TX. This one is supposed to be way bigger with a ton more stuff but I wasn't impressed. Probably because I don't read manga or play video games. LOL Wes liked it and bought 2 video game art books. I like the store for its cute stationary and kitschy stuff, which it didn't have as much as I had hoped it would. We walked all around the malls and went into quite a few shops. One was Amiko...an authorized tokidoki retailer. Oh my freakin' gawd!!! 😲😁😍 I was in heaven. I wanted to buy it all, but I exercised self-control and only bought my traditional souvenir of a Unicorno figurine.
I know the Guo Pei fashion exhibit at the art museum should be my favorite day in San Francisco since that is the reason why I booked this vacation, but I think my favorite day was our day in Chinatown. It was so neat to just walk around and see everything. My favorite parts of Chinatown were the fortune cookie factory, the mural of the Manchurian warriors, our meal at 8 tables, and Amiko boutique (okay, that was in Japantown). Wes said our day in Chinatown was awesome and I suspect it was his favorite part of our vacation as well. And here is a random picture of our hotel (right in the most "beautiful part of San Francisco" as our first Uber driver sarcastically told us), because I have nowhere else to put it in this blog. 😅
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