San Francisco - Day One

Look, I realize that reading about someone else's vacation can be about as exciting as looking through someone else's old high school year book.  But I feel the need to post this for posterity.  So I promise to try to make this as interesting and entertaining as possible, as long as you promise to pretend you read it all and didn't just scroll down through all the pictures.  Deal?  Deal.

Having spent a good chunk of my life living in the Bay Area, I'm no stranger to San Francisco.  I've been to all the touristy spots several times; heck, I could probably give the tour at Alcatraz.  (I've even been on the behind-the-scenes-extra-special Alcatraz tour.  Super cool.)  So I decided that for this trip I was going to try to do and see things that I had never done before.  I wanted to learn more about the history and culture of the city; way more interesting than whatever's goin' on down at Fisherman's Warf.  Also - less crowded and cheaper.  Bonus.

We stayed at the Harbor Court Hotel, which is right on the Embarcadero (the waterfront.)  That first morning we found a bit of breakfast in the Ferry Building and decided to eat outside.  We had a great view of the Bay Bridge, not that I took a picture of it.  But I did get a picture of the backside of the Ferry Building, which is not nearly as attractive as the front, but oh well.

There's our hotel - the shortish red one in front. (You can see the sign.)

Lance had to head off to the Moscone Center for the first day of his conference, and I had a few hours to kill before my first tour, so I meandered around the financial district, trying to get my bearings.  (That dang diagonal Market Street!  Seriously, Brigham knew what he was doing with the numbered grid system in UT.)  I people watched and window shopped and just thoroughly enjoyed being by myself without having to worry about kids!  (SF with little kids? No thanks.) Then I stumbled upon Crate & Barrel, which I normally love and which I love even more without children!  Good thing for my budget I had a limited amount of space in my luggage; otherwise, I would have bought so many awesome bowls and platters and other wonderful things. (Yes, I know I can buy all that online, but there's just something about being in the actual store...)  Instead, I found an apron that I really like.

It's kinda masculine, but I think that's why I like it.  (Most of my other aprons are quite feminine.)

So finally it was time for my first tour. While planning for my trip I discovered that San Francisco offers tons of free walking tours all over the city. Seriously, guys - these tours were AWESOME!!  The guides were all friendly and intelligent and the tours were all extremely interesting. And did I mention free?  Well, they ask for donations, and I gave the suggested $5 each time, but it was well worth that and more. I went on 5 of these tours in the space of 3 days, and would have done more but there are only so many hours in the day.

The first tour I went on was titled "Bawdy and Naughty" and was about the thriving prostitution business that has always been a part of SF.  It started in a little alley named, ironically, Maiden Lane.  At one point during the mid 1800's over 1000 prostitutes lived on two blocks of this lane.  Yowza, that's a lot of ladies of the evening.  See the gates on the side?  Those aren't the originals, but there really was a gate there at one point to keep the respectable ladies from accidentally walking there.  Apparently, some lady was walking home from church, accidentally went down that street, and was quite insulted when all the, ah, workers yelled things to her like "Why are you giving it away for free when you can get paid for it?!" and things of that nature.  Yikes.  (And haha!)

I learned that just before the gold rush there were around 300-500 people in SF.  Within the next two years that number swelled to over 50,000, most of them men.  Word spread, and working gals from all over the globe came to make money.  On average, the ratio of men to women was 50:1.  It was all about the economics of supply and demand; money was there to be made!

Here's our tour guide; he did a pretty great job, although he often got distracted mid-sentence.  This was the only tour I went on where I didn't drastically lower the median age of the group.  Perhaps it was the subject matter... :)  I must say that considering the subject matter, it was all very tastefully discussed.

Actually, the tour was really informative about all sorts of things.  My favorite parts were about the "Bawds" (madames of the *wink*wink* parlors).  These women knew what they wanted and went for it!  They often had quite a bit of money and influence around town.  These women gained quite a bit of status, and were often in cahoots with the police.  Every year there was a Policemen's Ball and these working girls were always elected "queen" of the ball!  (Seriously, there'd be pictures in the newspaper of the police chief with the madame on his arm.  Everyone knew who she really was but just looked the other way.)

We ended the tour at the St. Francis hotel, which has a really interesting history that I won't go into here because you all have access to Wikipedia.  (But my favorite bit is that the first meeting of the UN was held there.  Cool.)

The tour lasted about 45 minutes longer than I expected, which meant I needed to rush a little if I was going to eat and get to my next tour on time.  Luckily, you can't spit in SF without hitting a restaurant. And everyone - EVERYONE - in the financial gets their lunch to go, so I knew finding something wouldn't be a problem.

**Side note: we decided to not get a rental car for this trip because: 1) parking and driving in SF is - excuse my French - HELLISH, 2) it would have been really expensive to rent, park, and drive the dang thing, and 3) SF is very pedestrian-friendly.  So I walked basically everywhere, averaging about 5 miles each day.  Up and down those dang hills. **

Anywho, as I made my way toward China Town I found a Mediterranean place that was pretty full but had a line that seemed to be moving quickly.  I took this as a good sign and ordered a chicken shwarma to go.  I didn't want to eat in the tiny place, so I decided to take my lunch to the park where my next tour started.  This was... interesting.

For reals.  I was in Portsmouth Square Plaza, where apparently every old person in Chinatown hangs out during the day.  There were tons of old men gambling with different Chinese board and card games.  I totally stuck out like a sore thumb and got some unusual looks.  (Actual song that ran through my head: "One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong...")  But then I found an area that was not quite so gambly and that had other women around, so I felt okay about eating there.  My shwarma was DELICIOUS, made even better by the fact that I could watch this rather round Chinese grandma totally beat these younger men at what appeared to be some version of poker.  I didn't have to speak Chinese to realize that she was quite the card shark; it was quite entertaining.

Eventually my tour of Chinatown started.  In front of this statue. Which happened to have a bird on its head.  This tickled me for some reason and I had to take several pictures.  Because c'mon, the bird was on it's head!

Here's our tour guide - he's the one without the bird on his head.  He was EXCELLENT, by the way.  Probably the best guide all week.

Did I mention how I ate with this view of the Transamerica building?  Pretty awesome.  I was pretty bummed that you couldn't go to the top of that or any of the other skyscrapers in SF.  I guess Chicago has the corner on that market.

Also, the Hilton that's in front of the Transamerica, just to the left?  So ugly.  Seriously, I kept staring at it and thinking that it looked like some sort of Communist concrete building project, which I guess is appropriate since it's right next to Chinatown and all.  But seriously.  I decided that day that while I really do love SF and it's beautiful because it's by the bay, Chicago's architecture beats it hands down.  Anyway, back to the Chinatown tour.

"But Maren", you're thinking, "you said you didn't want to go to all the touristy places.  Isn't Chinatown touristy?"  Yes, very much so yes.  But this tour went well beyond Grant Street (the most touristy spot in Chinatown). We went up and down small alleys, through the local neighborhoods, and down Stockton Street, which is where all the locals do their real shopping.  (Think exotic foods, herbs, etc.)

They put the lanterns up to attract tourists, which is the biggest source of income for Chinatown.

We learned all about how Chinatown started, about the discrimination laws made against the Chinese, about the immigration boom to this area, and the associations that were created to help these immigrants.

We learned about the tong (Chinese gangs) wars and how a massacre of tourists in the 70's finally got the locals to work with the police to crack down on all the illegal activity.  We learned about the opium dens and other not-so-great things that Europeans did to the Chinese.

We learned about how much poverty there is in this area because it still largely is made up of recent immigrants and those who cannot afford to leave the area.  (Mainly the elderly.)  The nicest apartments in the area are considered nice only because each apartment has it's own kitchen and bathroom, instead of sharing them communally.  No one know exactly how many people live in the area, but it is considered the most densely populated area in the country, which I totally believe because it was CROWDED.

We even went inside a folk temple, which people in Chinatown really do use.  They didn't mind if we took pictures, but it still felt a little odd.  They liked a lot of bright colors and lights in there.

Here's the front of the folk temple.

We went up and down all sorts of alleys, most smaller than this.  But this one had the fortune cookie factory, which you can kinda see on the lower left.  It's the last one left in SF, as fortune cookies are now made in big factories across the US.  Fun fact (that I already knew but thought I'd still share): fortune cookies were invented in SF.  They're not Chinese at all, other than they've adopted them because we (Americans) expect to have them with our Chinese (American) food!  I bought a bag of regular and chocolate fortune cookies to take home to the kids, who happily ate several this evening.

It was at this point that I remembered I hadn't taken any feet shots during this trip.  (A tradition started when I went on a cruise.)  So, here are my feet in Chinatown.  Yes, my nails do match my new, comfy Tevas.

After the tour I window shopped a bit, looking for souvenirs for the kids, but didn't really find anything that 1) I was willing to have around the house, and 2) was willing to pay for.  (There's a lot of crap being sold out there, people.)

At this point I must mention that it was HOT.  Okay, not that bad.  But uncomfortably hot in the sun and when you're hiking up and down hills.  That morning I had been freezing, even with my long skirt and jacket on.  This is how you know you're in San Francisco in the summer: freeze in the morning, melt in the afternoon - depending on what part of town you're in.  (Seriously, the micro climates in that town are crazy.)

I eventually made it back to the hotel and crashed into bed, exhausted.  A few hours later, though, I had to get up because Lance and I had dinner plans with the good people of VEEAM.  Yeah, don't feel bad - I had never heard of them either.  That's because you and I are not IT directors.  Lance, however, is an IT director, and happens to be one VEEAM's favorite clients.  We went to the Salt House, which was a pretty happenin' place.  I spent most of the evening listening to boring IT talk (Which reminded me of when I used to work and Lance would come to dinners and have to listen to us discuss advertising.  We're even now, Lance.), people watching, and fighting a losing battle with jet lag.  That said, the food was excellent and free.  We had a GREAT waiter, who didn't make me feel weird for not taking advantage of all the free alcohol.  (He made an excellent Cherry Coke, BTW. :)  I even got to have something I've always wanted to try: poutine.  I don't know how authentic the Salt House's version was, but mercy, it was good.

Lance and I happily walked our full selves back to the hotel, dodging the homeless people on the sidewalks and enjoying our time together.  It was a great first day.