End of summer vacation 2023. With flexibility in mind we were able to squeeze in a quick last trip right before school started up again. Thanks Costco for the package deal!
San Francisco is a short 5-6 hour flight from Honolulu. Easy peasy. Although there was public transportation to our hotel, we Ubered it to avoid transferring with all of our luggage. Temperatures ranged from 60-80f or so, a nice change from our sticky Hawaii weather.
We stayed up at the northern side of the city near the touristy Fisherman’s Wharf. Hotel Zoe was in a great location, walking distance to most of the sights we wanted to see and an easy Muni ride to everywhere else. The hotel also offered free bikes and ebikes to use, but they were a little tall for *some* of us to ride so we weren’t able to make as much use of them as we wanted. However, all of us were able to enjoy the free afternoon s’mores that the hotel offered out by their fire pits. One night the boys just missed the cutoff but the staff still snuck them some packets anyway.
A few things about the city… Last time we visited was over a decade ago (see baby Paxton above). It was a diverse, fun place to visit. This time almost everyone who we talked to said to “be careful.” Crime has been on an uptick since COVID changed the demographic of the city. Druggies, smash and grab, Asian hate crimes, that kind of thing. Ok. Druggies have always been around and we weren’t driving a car in the city so hopefully we’ll stay safe. Did we get jacked? Read on to find out.
Right across our hotel, we noticed a huge Pasha Hawaii container. Turns out it was the Local 10 International Longshoreman Warehouse Union packing it full of donations for those affected by the Lahaina wildfires. So touching. I made a mental note to go over and help them load it up when we had some downtime, and when the rest of the family was gorging on smores, I was able to do just that. It really warmed my heart to see people from all over coming together to help Maui.
This was a super cool place, Musee Mechanic. I want to call it a place with old video games. Hudson’s been looking for old pinball machines so this place was perfect. We spent a good amount of time (and quarters) there, just playing all the old games they had. It was awesome!
Even though it was a short trip and we hadn’t been to SF in a while, one thing we were luckily able to do was meet up with a bunch of friends and family! June’s cousin Heidi and fam drove all the way from Sacramento to have chowder bowls with us and deliver fresh peaches from their tree. We also got to see my “little sister” Kiddie that I went to China with ages ago and meet her daughters and eat San Tung chicken. And Hudson and Paxton’s old swim buddies live in Berkeley now so their family drove over to see us too for dinner at Surisan. It was pretty amazing we got to see so many people plus do everything on June’s list in such a short amount of time.
Speaking of June’s list, besides the usual touristy stuff like the sea lions at Pier 39 and riding a cable car, she also was on the hunt for “sjb.” I don’t understand the need for acronyms but whatever. Basically it’s a pan fried xiao long bao soup dumpling. We had it in Japan and she’s been looking for it again ever since. We ended up at a place called Dumpling Home, and I was kind of skeptical but it ended up being pretty good!
Another must on her list was to go back to Paxton Gate (yes mostly because of the name). Last time we visited, we got a cool shirt for Pax. This time we ended up with some funky jewelry too. Plus it’s located in the trendy Mission District, so that was a neat place to wander around. We checked out some vintage shops and cafes in the area.
At one point, June and the boys wanted to check out a science museum called the Exploratorium but I wanted to see the lowrider car exhibit at SFMoMA so off they went while I tried to navigate the Muni on my own. I ended up waiting and waiting at a stop until I realized it was actually underneath me, underground! Once I cleared that up, it was easy going. The exhibit was pretty cool but what was better was all the actual cars driving around, and their gathering spot just happened to be next to the Exploratorium. Full circle!
Let’s see what else…Chinatown was also a fun wander. Hud was pretty into watching them make fortune cookies. The Eye Museum was a random yet intriguing stop. The Cable Car museum was a quick stop after our ride on the California/Van Ness line. And overall the city wasn’t nearly as sketchy as everyone I had talked to made it out to be. It also made me wonder why we haven’t been back in so long. Hopefully it won’t take us another 10 years before we go back!
The WOO family page 