Visiting San Francisco - Alcatraz and Chinatown

Friday was a whirlwind day for us in San Francisco and there is still some of the best stuff left. Where I left off, we were getting ready for our trip over to Alcatraz. Our visit to Alcatraz was the only thing on our agenda that we set in stone before our trip. Needless to say, we were excited.

The whole Alcatraz experience was really incredible. As the island is a National Park, it is very well run

 

^creepy/cool

Tickets to Alcatraz can sell out weeks in advance sometimes so it's best to buy in advance. During the weekends, you're likely not going to be able to walk up to the window and get tickets. Buy early. Also, you can choose between a day tour or a night tour. We chose the night tour because that sounded cooler, but the day tour would be just as interesting and is a few bucks less. For the day tour, a few more parts of Alcatraz are open and you can take your time exploring, just keeping an eye out for the ferries back. The night tour has the same tour of the prison, but they add a few extras. There are presentations and speakers you can listen to about various different talks throughout the night. You also get to see the SF skyline lit up which is just beautiful.

After Alcatraz, we decided to get dinner in Chinatown with our friends. My friend asked around her grad program to see where the best Chinese food in Chinatown is. We came to Hang Ah. It's was a good price and good food. Maybe not the most amazing meal I could have, but I still enjoyed it. Compared to some of the rumors I've heard about overpriced food, this was a really good option if you are set on the Chinatown experience. We were too tired to explore the rest of the area, so we just went back to our place and passed out! I'll share more soon!

Visiting San Francisco - Coit Tower, Lombard Street, and The Wharf

The second day of San Francisco was spent getting the tourist-y stuff out of the way. Also known as the most exhausting day of the trip. If you weren't aware, San Francisco has A LOT OF HILLS. My iPhone told me I walked over 20,000 steps that day. Wild!!

We started the day out at the Ferry Building. I was dying to try Blue Bottle Coffee. However, that line was HUGE and just didn't seem worth it. So we walked over to Peets coffee, I got a latte and was a very happy camper.

After sitting outside for a bit, taking in the beautiful bay breeze, we decided to tackle our first mountain of the day by going to Coit Tower. According to Google Maps, it's about a two block walk. With about a 1000 steps... 

However, the view was totally worth it.

Once you go inside, it's a small admission fee and an 80-year old elevator ride up and the views get even better.

We scaled back down and decided to head over to Lombard Street. Basically, down one hill and up another. To Adventure!!

^Lombard Street (the curvy part) is a street to the right at the top of the hill. 

And it's not really all that exciting. Mostly just a bunch of people all getting photos. Just like me... 

So we decided to walk over to Ghirardelli Square. It's nothing spectacular, but it does have a few chocolate stores and you get a free piece of chocolate just for stopping in. Also, it's really close to the cable car trolleys if that is something you are interested in. 

By now we are hungry and go in search of some seafood! To the Wharf!

We ate at some awful restaurant but we were so hungry, it didn't really matter. Later I bought some sourdough bread from Boudin (amazing) and it became a great snack for the rest of the day.

We wandered around some shops and headed over to Pier 39. It was a lovely day as the weather was perfect. The Wharf is probably not something I would do again, but it was good to cross it off the list.  It touristy isn't your thing, I would definitely just skip it altogether. 

We wandered around getting ready for our visit to Alcatraz!!

I'll post more about Alcatraz later! :)