San Francisco

I know I said I'd update this blog yesterday but I've graduated into the phase of pregnancy where heart burn is a constant companion so after our adventures I spent my evening with tums and a wet towel to fend off the sweltering heat! I'm so glad we don't live in Arizona. The funny thing I learned this week from a lady I met in the waiting room of the blood lab was that there are very few places in this area that have air conditioning. They all have heat though. I thought that was ironic for a place that seems to be more apt to be hot than cold.

Anyway, now for our San Francisco trip. It was so much fun! We got there around 10am and rode the metro into the heart of the city. The metro was a little more ghetto than Aaron had made it out to be and he even admitted it wasn't as nice as the DC metro. We got to our destination and walked down market street to Union Square. I guess I still hadn't been to a big city yet because I was completely taken aback by a homeless man just lying there on the side of the road. There are tons of homeless in DC but they all hang out together it seems by this building that I can't tell if it's a homeless shelter or not. There are a lot of upscale shops around that place so I would never do anything beyond window shop ever. They did have a ton of See's candy shops and I was always so tempted to go in. I stopped myself however. We got there early enough in the day to see the street vendors start to set up. There are a lot of them and they sell jewelry, caricatures/ portraits, photography and candy. There is one street they had blocked of where this art studio comes and sets up all their work for show or purchase. It looked really neat but it wasn't set up when we went by so we didn't get a picture.
After eating our lunch in Union Square we headed over to China Town. Theirs two of them you know. The tourist China Town and the real China Town. We went to both. It was neat!
They had performers in the street and the shops had some crazy little novelties. Aaron was right in telling me that all the shops sold basically the same touristy items and it was true. That didn't stop me, however; from being captivated by new little gadgets as we walked down the street.
Of course a trip to San Francisco wouldn't be complete without hiking up one of those HUGE hills. So we did in order to get to real China Town where Aaron spent 6 months of his mission. It was like a completely different world. There were only two other white people there besides us (I wouldn't have been surprised if it was also a former missionary taking his wife to see his old haunts); I didn't understand anything that was said (Aaron understood some but he said most of the people there speak Cantonese where he learned Mandarin); None of the signs were in English and the shops all had the same smells of foods I had never seen or heard of and I don't know if I'd want to try. It was also crowded! I think the streets and side walks were completely full of people and we had to hold hands throughout in order to not lose each other.
One of the interesting things about San Francisco is the diversity there. One street will be completely Chinese with no signs of any other culture and a half block down the road, it will have completely changed to Italian with no remnants of other cultures. So even though it's a very diverse city, they have very much segregated themselves from each other.
After China Town we made our way to the famous cable car station. We walked through Union Square again and saw this amazing performance.
It's a dance form called Levitate and it's a cross between rock climbing and dancing. I tried to take a video but it didn't do the performance justice. Anyway, and the cable care station it's so interesting because at the end of the line the car is loaded on this giant wooden turn table and manually pushed to turn it around to go the other way. It was like going back in time before there were power machines to do that.
There was also a guy there that Aaron calls the "no sex" man. Apparently he's been there for quite a while, since before Aaron was a missionary.
We rode the cable car to Fisherman's Wharf and spent the rest of our day there. We went to Ghirardelli Square. Yep, you guessed it. They are the Ghirardelli chocolate makers and the square has a huge candy/ice cream shop for the chocolate to be sold. They were giving out free samples so I think we went through several times in order to get tastes. I also ran into a vendor that was selling magnetic jewelry. I've always wanted a magnetic bracelet/necklace and they weren't as expensive as I'd seen them on the Internet so I got one. Thanks Aaron!
We walked along the beach and saw a jelly fish (I had never seen one in real life) and saw Alcatraz from a distance. One of these days I would like to tour that place. We saw all the old boats that used to be used in the area for different things. Then we headed over to pier 39 where all the eateries are and the shops. We stopped and watched the seals for a long time. They spend all day in the sun floating on these huge wooden rafts in the harbor. It was quite fun to watch. There where males that wanted a whole raft to themselves so they would chase or push all the others off and then guard the sides so none would come on. Then they would want to fight and so start barking at other dominant males on nearby rafts! It was fun.
The famous item to get at Fisherman's Wharf is clam chowder. Probably because it's good and one of the least expensive meals you can buy there. So we went to Boudin's bread factory and got clam chowder in a sour dough bread bowl. It was scrumptious. Then we went and got a sundae and the Ghirardelli ice cream shop. By this time it was past dinner and the sea breeze was coming in and making everything pretty cold. I was also getting pretty tired. So we called it a day and headed to the cable car stop. It was such a long wait! I don't know what the deal was but I think it was a good hour to hour and a half wait to get on. Poor Aaron had to keep me warm the whole time. Poor guy, he got pretty badly sun burnt so we stopped to get aloe vera gel on the way home.
All in all, it was an amazing day. I know there were things we didn't get to see, but that will wait till another weekend.