Day 1 and 2 of our San Francisco Trip

Rob and I went to San Francisco for 5 days to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. Rob had never been before and I had only spent one day there on a family trip to see my uncle who lives in Oakland when I was in junior high.

We had a great time and enjoyed the cool weather (65 degrees every day) and the kids did great with my parents at home. We stayed at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins, which was on Nob Hill, the highest point in San Francisco. All the streets went steeply downhill from our hotel. It was a beautiful view. The next 2 pictures are our hotel and the view from the street running alongside the hotel.
The first afternoon we were there we walked around Union Square and some of the areas near our hotel and tried to get a lay of the land. Rob figured out the cable car/train/Metro system and we bought a 3 day pass for that.

This is Grace Cathedral that was one block from our hotel.
This was the park right across the street from it. It had a beautiful fountain and a playground for the kids. In the morning, people were doing Tai Chi in the park.
This is the entrance to China Town. There were many interesting shops with lots of toys and umbrellas and all sorts of decorations for your home. Farther in, we found a lot of little markets with fresh fish, produce, and lots of dried/salted fish and other things that we didn't recognize. We got to this area around 5pm and so people were coming home from work and stopping by these markets to grocery shop, so that was really interesting to watch.


The second day, we took a ferry from the Ferry building to Sausalito. The Ferry Building is really cool and has some great little restaurants and a market and some little shops. We really enjoyed walking through there and we ate at a couple of the restaurants there during our trip.

The Ferry Building...
Leaving the Ferry Building with the SF skyline in the distance...More of the SF skyline...
Passing Alcatraz...Passing by the Golden Gate Bridge...

Entering Sausalito...
After the Ferry Ride, we ate at a wonderful seafood restaurant called Tadich and then took the Cable Car to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square. Fisherman's Wharf was a total turn-off. Very touristy and not in a good way. There were a ton of people, crappy souviner shops, just not what we had experienced yet in SF. You lost all the autheticity and uniqueness of what SF is known for. Needless to say, we quickly walked through the area and made up for it with a big hot fudge sunday from the Ghirardelli Chocolate eatery.


Rob, on the cable car...
The sealions at Fisherman's Wharf...

That concluded our first 2 days of our trip.