Home » United States » San Francisco

August 2005

San Francisco

David Aaronson
2005-10-01 19:07:38

Displayed times (last time: )

This page is roughly in chronological order over parts of 3 days while we were visiting San Francisco. Due to extremely erratic wanderings, there is absolutely no geographical order, but then San Francisco is relatively compact and a good city for erratic wandering. This is of course, Chinatown, which isn't really like a part of San Francisco at all but more like an enclave of China (1). Along the main streets are shops and restaurants that operate in an interesting mixture of Chinese and English, but the back streets are pretty much 100 percent Chinese. Also we have to recommend the House of Nanking as a restaurant even though it's clear that every other guidebook in the world already does so. We sat between some French travellers with a Lonely Planet book and some Australians with a Michelin Guide. (Yes, you're right that is inherently backwards).

Lombard Street (2). It's not just a street anymore, it's a tourist attraction. Our condolences to the people who actually live on this stretch. Originally the street was straight down but there were so many accidents the city engineers did this to it. It's an interesting hike up Russian Hill from the west side along Lombard St. You'll pass all the cars waiting in line to drive down this side. You'll probably see at least 2 minor accidents happen as well. So much for city engineering.

Here's the top view (and a nice view of the bay besides) (3). This picture was carefully framed to shield out the other 300 people standing around taking pictures. Really. It's just a street. Of course, here we are propagating it's fame on the website. The top of the hill now features a cacophany of cars noises, engines, tires squealing and occassionally crashes as people try to navigate up a ridiculous incline 8 feet at a time.

At any given time, most of the tourists in San Francisco seem to congregate in the wharf area, particularly ...