21 September 2010
Trip Day 5 — San Fancisco Day 1 – China Town
Posted by BaBa under: Travel .
Today, we got up and were on the road by 7:30AM. We had about a 2+ hour drive into San Francisco from Vacaville where we stayed the night. We were unsure about the traffic (thank goodness for the car pool lane) and made really good time until we reached the Bay Bridge. This is where the traffic caught up with us. We finally got across the bridge and the traffic began to ease the further away from the city we went.
We easily found Milbrae and our LaQunita. As you may have surmised things were not good with our stay in Seattle Downtown location. However, this was the exact opposite. We met Mohamed who is the general manager for the property. I had spoken to him on the phone and he was really helpful in working out the logistics of getting into San Francisco. He could not give us our room as it had not yet been cleaned. However, he did let us put our bags in the room and get settled. He upgraded today’s room to a King Plus with kitchen from the two standard beds. Our reservation for tonight was for two standard beds. We had a King plus for the other three nights. So instead of having to move after the first night, he put us in the same room for all nights. Needless to say, we were all thrilled.
While we still had the car, we made a quick grocery store run and then dropped our shopping back at the hotel. When were returned, we found our room already cleaned and ready for us. Such good service really stands out and is appreciated especially when it follows up the poor service in downtown Seattle.
We dropped the car and they took us to CalTrain station. We just missed the train because I was slow to figure our how to purchase the 8 ticket passes for us. We still made it into San Francisco easily and got on the bus to the Wharf.
Our first stop was to pickup our city passes and then to head to China Town for shopping. We got Sheridan a snack and then off we went. Sheridan got to ride on an old street car along the Warf. We then caught the bus to China Town. I made a miscalculation reading the map and we missed our stop because our intended destination was on top of the tunnel and the bus went under the tunnel.
Sheridan had told the ladies at our bank that we were going to San Francisco to buy him some suits. This was sort of true. We did want to get him some Chinese Outfits for Autumn Moon and Chinese New Years. MaMa also needed to get some t-shirts for the home school co-op class she is teaching on China.
We were back with our bad travel habits of not stopping to eat and we did finally secure food. Sheridan got to order at a Chinese Restaurant in China Town. He got wonton with noodles and loved every bite.
After dinner, I found the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie shop and bought some fresh fortune cookies to snack on as we walked. These are a delight and one of my fondest memories of San Francisco.
We did a little more shopping in China Town and then boarded he bus back to CalTrain station. The bus was very crowded. There is a huge Oracle (computer) trade show in town. We were packed in like sardines in a can. Whenever you ride public transportation, you have to be ready for some strange experiences. There were two really loud mouthed bigots on the bus who labeled it the Dim Sum Express or the Shanghai Express. We attempted to shield Magoo from the bigots. Their comments made us uncomfortable and we were glad to get off of the bus. We arrived at the train station in time to grab a Subway sandwich for each of us and just make the train to Milbrae. It was a long day, but we had fun and made most of our purchases for the trip. Here is a shot of the t-shirt we got for MaMa’s co-op homeschool China Class. I will have to post the photos from the pro-camera later.
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