San Francisco Trip – A Review

We were given a 4 Day-3 Night trip to San Francisco by my mom as a Christmas present. We were totally shocked and thrilled with the gift as we haven’t been on a vacation since October 2006. My mom purchased the trip through Orbitz and it included the airfare and hotel. She also reserved us a rental car through Orbitz, though separate from the trip package as it was cheaper.

We left San Diego on February 13 in the morning. We were scheduled out on an 8:30 a.m. flight, however United decided to cancel our flight and booked us on their next flight which was 3 hours later. Long story short, United blows. The main flight attendant on our flight to SF was totally out of control and threatened to turn the plane around because someone had some soda dripping out of their carry-on bag. We ended up arriving in SF closer to 2 p.m. instead of 10 a.m.

Our first stop after arrival was Chinatown for some lunch and walking around. An online friend who lives in the City recommended Chef Jia’s to us and since it didn’t look too busy by the time we got there, we were sitting at a table right away. The food was amazing! DH ordered beef chow mein and I got the sesame chicken lunch special and we shared some fried rice. It was amazing and very reasonably priced. I highly recommend it to anyone. Our futile attempts to find the Fortune Cookie Factory were cut short by our parking situation (which while a short term parking spot, provided a great view of the TransAmerica Building), so we decided to head to our hotel.

We stayed at the Hotel Kabuki in Japantown. We loved our hotel. It used to go by Miyako Hotel, but was bought and refurbished. This is not a “Four Seasons”-type hotel, but it was along the lines of a nice Hilton/Hyatt. It had the perfect Japanese flavor, not just in the décor, but also with the traditional Japanese soaking tub in the bathroom with directions on how to use it. There is also a cool Japanese-inspired garden just outside of the hotel lobby with a koi pond.


Part of the ritual at this hotel when you check in is a welcome tea. We opted to have ours the first night after we returned to our room for the evening. It was kinda cool. We didn’t spend a ton of time in our room, but it was so nice to return to a nice, calming, clean place each night and we enjoyed the culture and feel of Japantown as well. There are several restaurants right outside the doors of the hotel and many more within just blocks.

Also, and this is a biggie, there is ample parking around the hotel and a very reasonable parking garage (I think it’s $15 a day, maximum). We chose to test our luck with the parking meters. We managed to only park in a garage once on our entire trip (at the SF MOMA) and instead found meters wherever we went. We got a couple of rolls of quarters and managed to park for less than $55 for our entire 4-day trip. You just have to make sure you read the street signs (to look for street sweeping) and know the meter limits.

After checking into our room on the first night, we decided to do some driving around. We took some pictures along the way, including stops for some proper San Francisco Victorian Row Houses and this cool Catholic church we spotted, St. Dominic’s.

We also caught an amazing sunset from our hotel the first night! Woo hoo!


Day 2
Part of our trip was an exercise in perfecting the art of my husband and I traveling together. I grew up going on very busy, structured vacations, so they’re what I’m used to doing. My husband prefers the exact opposite. Each time we’ve traveled together we’ve gotten better at finding the balance between militant sightseeing and lazing in the hotel all day and this trip was no exception.

We slept in each day of our trip and usually enjoyed a leisurely “brunch” before getting our day underway. On this day we decided to eat in the Mission District. We were all set to try Ti Couz, another of my online friend's recommendations, however they had changed their hours for Valentine’s Day, so they were closed and we were sad to miss their crepes. Instead we ended up at The Pork Store Café, which was also quite tasty. I had a chorizo scramble and DH had an omelet… both portions were huge and delicious, and the price was right. After eating we browsed the stores in the area and also ended up visiting Creativity Explored. This is an organization provides art classes and opportunities for the disabled. They have regular gallery showing of the art and the artists receive and portion of the proceeds from the sale of any of their pieces. We watched the artists working in the gallery and DH bought me a painting I liked by an artist named Marcus as my Valentine’s Day gift.

After the Mission District we headed to the Yerba Buena Gardens and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. We had a great time taking photos in the gardens and nearby, drinking coffee in a nearby café and exploring the museum installations. If you even have the chance to see an exhibit by Olafur Eliasson, go see it. The things he did with mirrors, prisms and natural expressions of light, air and vibrations was very cool.




We wanted to avoid Valentine’s Day crowds at restaurants, so we decided to enjoy dinner right near our hotel. Upon a recommendation by my friend, Joanne, we went to Mifune in the Japan Center. The sushi was delicious, the yakitori and noodles very tasty and DH’s tonkatsu was the best he’d ever had. For dessert we walked further down into the mall and had a desert crepe from Sophie’s Crepes. The crepes were seriously good and very reasonably priced. We intended to do some shopping in the area but all of the stores were closing, so we postponed the browsing to a later day.

Day 3
We started out with a late breakfast/early lunch at La Boulange in Pacific Heights. The café is part of the Bay Bread Company and we weren’t disappointed. DH had a club sandwich and I had an omelet. Both were tasty and affordable. We really liked the neighborhood where this café was located and spent some time walking through shops, including Paper Source, one of my favorite stores of all-time.

This day we were headed over the Golden Gate Bridge, so on our way we stopped to take some pictures of the bridge from The Presidio and visited The Palace of Fine Arts.



From there we headed to Muir Woods, one of the largest coastal preserves in the world. The redwood stands in the park are magnificent – some of the trees are more than 600 years old – and the park just turned 100 years old in January. We took the paved trail through the park as far as it would go, which is about a 2-mile loop. Afterwards we stopped by Muir Beach and the Muir Overlook which provided excellent views.

This night we headed to Luna Park, recommended to me by several people, for dinner. The restaurant is in the Mission District and serves upscale comfort food. DH and I really enjoyed our dinner here. I must say the highlight of my meal was the dessert – Make Your Own S’mores. They bring you a dish filled with toasted marshmallows, a mini fondue of dark chocolate and these graham cookies. OH SO GOOD!


After dinner we enjoyed an Old First Concert. I stumbled upon their website when doing research for our trip as I wanted to take DH to the opera or something similar when we were in San Francisco, however there were no symphony or opera performances scheduled during our visit. The tickets to the concert were very reasonable ($15 each) and we were treated to a concert by several symphony musicians and a guest artist in the Old First Church which is 150 years old.


Day 4
After packing up and checking out of our hotel, we enjoyed an early lunch at Kushi Tsuru. A very good meal, though a bit on the pricey side, we were the only non-Japanese people in the restaurant, which we always take as a good sign when picking a place to eat sushi. After lunch we shopped for a bit in the mall, visiting places including: Kinokuniya, a stationery store run by the same company that runs a chain of Japanese bookstores; Ichiban Kan, a store (like Daiso here in San Diego) that sells lots of Japanese products for around $1; grabbing another crepe at Sophie’s Crepes and getting Japanese purikura pictures at Pika Pika. The booths are absolute fun and silliness.

We decided to complete some of the more “touristy” tasks of SF before we left. We took a drive down Lombard Street and walked Fisherman’s Wharf before we headed to the airport to return home.

Before we left, we stopped at an antique and collectibles store I’d heard about in the past, Timeless Treasures. They specialize in carrying vintage sign letters and I found some really cool letters to spell out my name and “mom” to give to my mom as a thank you for sending us on this trip. The ladies who own the shop are absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend a visit.

All in all it was a fantastic trip. Next time we plan to ride a Cable Car (one of my favorite things that we just ran out of time to do), visit Golden Gate Park and have at least one meal in North Beach, but all in all I’d say we got quite the taste of SF and we can’t wait to visit again soon!