San Francisco - California Roadtrip

I am back to posting about our Cali road trip which was over 8 months ago now! oh well.. I like documenting our trips on my blog so I remember everything so it's better late than never.

we spent the next day exploring San Francisco. it is such a beautiful city and while we saw some of the same sites we saw last time, I also wanted to get more of a feel for the city's less touristy parts. one of our favorite things to do when visiting cities is also one of the cheapest, walking around exploring neighborhoods and downtown areas. I like to pretend that I live there and see what life is like as a local. 


we ended up walking by Lombard street again because our hotel was so close. 

apparently there are a lot of these pretty little parrots in the area. they are called cherry-headed conures and I found out about them here. 

 I just love these Victorian homes so much!

 we went to the top of the Coit Tower but it was too foggy to really see anything. 

 we didn't get a chance to ride a cable car last trip so we decided we should at least once. I found it a little overrated but at least we can saw we did it. there was a lady by us who looked like she was having the time of her life though and she kept having her husband take pictures with her hair blowing in the wind. it was pretty funny.

we went to Chinatown and explored a little. I did a little research on my phone about the history of Chinatown because I find it strange that this little piece of China exists here without it assimilating with the rest of the city. it was interesting to see but we didn't stay there very long. 

 ☮

we ate some tasty ice cream at Bi-Rite creamery in the Mission district. I would have been happy spending my whole time in the Mission as it seemed like where the locals go to eat and hang out. it is fun to see touristy sites once but I more so like to get a feel for the actual culture of a city rather than the faux one created for those visiting. 

we walked to Dolores park which was nearby. it is a large park with excellent views of the city and where the locals go to hang out. it was amazing to me to see so many types of people going to spend time at the park because that doesn't happen very much in AZ. usually you only see families with kids at our parks but there were college students and older adults without kids. there were people skateboarding, playing frisbee, playing hacky sack, making human pyramids, dancing, bongo drumming, dogs playing, and lots of people just relaxing in the grass. it was the best place to relax and people watch. we ended up hanging out there for about 3 hours and it was honestly one of my favorite things we did in the city. 

 we walked around the park and realized it was a lot bigger than we thought and it had an incredible kid's playground. across the tracks was a group of homeless people that were yelling and it sounded like one of them was inciting the others to want to revolt against something.

 we ate dinner at Taqueria Pancho Villa and it was some of the best chicken I've had. we ordered everything to make our own tacos or burritos.