On Tuesday, we took a trip to San Francisco's Chinatown. It's actually one of the largest in the U.S, mainly because it used to be a neighborhood before modern day. Besides going to Chinatown, we also visited a couple of other locations in San Francisco! I'll give you a written walk through of what we did and how much we enjoyed it!
Chinatown
We visited a couple of spots in Chinatown. We first off visited the Old Saint Mary's Church. It was a beautiful Church and I'm glad I got the opportunity to visit it. After we visited the Church, we headed over to one of the shops in Chinatown and looked around. We loved looking at all the items there such as chopsticks, tea sets, clothes, incense, and of course lucky cats! Can't be Chinatown without lucky cats. After we visited the shop, we headed over to the AnimePop shop. I looked around for a bit and ended up buying a Hello Kitten Ramen figure and a Muchiro figure. We left from there to one of my favorite stops in Chinatown, the Fortune Cookie Factory. This was definitely a highlight to the trip. Called the 'Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory', you can watch the workers make the cookies and even buy some delicious cookies! The women working there gave us some free samples of cookies that didn't exactly fit the image of a "perfect" cookie. We bought chocolate covered fortune cookies and some of the ones similar to the samples. I would definitely recommend going as the cookies are amazing and the workers are super friendly.
The Cable Car Museum
Another great place I would recommend visiting is the Cable Car Museum. We walked over there after visiting Chinatown. It's a small, but great way to learn about the history of cable cars (a huge attraction to San Francisco!) and even get the opportunity to see how they work! It's free to get in, and while it may only take about 20 minutes to walk around, it's definitely a neat attraction. You can go upstairs to learn a bit about some of the history of cable cars as well as the gift shop. Then you can go downstairs to actually see some of the cables underground. From the balcony on the upstairs, you can also see the cables that run the cars. If you haven't been here before, definitely check it out as it is worth the visit. It's also cool if you're a newcomer to San Francisco! It gives you a chance to learn about one of San Francisco's most famous attractions.
Walking Around
If you go to San Francisco, you'll for sure want to snap a picture of the Bay. There are multiple spots to go, but a great place is at the top of the stairs.
I'm not exactly sure where it is based on location, but if you see a bunch of step stairs with seemingly no end, go to the top. It's worth it. I know it seems so long, but if you're new to San Francisco, do it. No regrets. Another great place to see is the infamous Lombard Street. It's this really twisty, and steep! street. It starts at the top of a hill and slowly goes down. It's a great picture taking spot, but it's also very crowded. I would suggest taking a picture at the very bottom however as you can get the whole street in it. But still be careful of cars since some will even make the journey down it! I'd personally recommend walking, but maybe driving down it would be fun to? Who knows! You don't know until you try.
Musee Mecanique
Our final stop for the day was my personal favorite spot in San Francisco, Musee Mecanique!
This is a unique little spot in San Francisco that I could spend hours talking about! It is my absolute favorite part, and you can easily see why. If you're a tourist or a first timer, this should easily be on your list. Or if you're a video game geek this place is for you. Simply living in the nostalgia of the old games such as Asteroids and Pac-man can be fun too. We headed straight here right after eating lunch at Boudin Sourdough. It's one of my favorite spots to eat lunch in the city, and if you want great bread this is one of the good spots! Musee Mecanique is free to enter. However, if you want to play any of the games or attractions you're going to need quarters. You can either bring some, or insert a dollar bill into a quarter machine. Just like the old times right?
One of my favorite things to do there is pinball. I absolutely love pinball machines because of all the crazy music and the crazy things that can happen when you hit something. Isn't it fun? They have lots of different pinball machines, including a Star Wars and Pirates of the Carribean themed one. Those were fun. They also have a prize machine that's a win every time. It's usually ducks but sometimes there's other toys. You can also relish in your youth with a blast from the past- Pac-man! They have a bunch of old games near the back where you can relieve your childhood trying to get onto the leaderboard for the day. I did it once. Another great thing about this place is that it has all sorts of weird attractions. They have piano attractions, arm wrestling, shooting practice, all the way to wack-a-mole and air hocky! They have all sorts of games from modern to old, and even really quirky games I've never heard of. Plus most of the old games are under a dollar, so it's relatively cheap depending on how many games you're going to play. I would recommend going with friends, by yourself, and especially with kids. Just have fun with it!
So I blabbered a lot about Musee Mecanique. But can you blame me? Who wouldn't like a place filled with games from the 80s! I know I wouldn't. Anyways, there are plenty of things to in San Francisco and this is just some of what's out there. I'm a local, so we'll often do day trips and find fun things, always ending in Musee Mecanique of course. I hope you enjoyed reading this! If you have any recommendations for places in San Francisco, let me know below! I'd love to hear about them.
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