Day 3 – San Francisco: Mission, Fisherman’s Wharf

The boys slept fantastically – Rohan woke once for a cuddle at 10pm and then slept until 8:30 and Julian woke at 8:00.  Steve and I slept ok but we were worried about Rohan after last night’s sleep and Julian was whimpering a little.

Anyway, we headed back to the same breakfast joint as yesterday but we ordered different food.  Julian didn’t want the waffles he ordered but ate them anyway (you can’t argue with a 5 year old). He still doesn’t like American Food.

Buying Caps on our way home from breakfast

Today we were going to the famous bakery, Tartine, which is in the Mission.  We caught the BART (Bay Area Regional Transport) train to 16^th Street- Mission which was very fast.  Next to this station is a Julian Ave, so it was a perfect photo op :)

Mission BART station

The Mission is famous for its street art, so we popped down a few alleyways to have a look.  Also spotted a guy “fixing” a previous painting.  

Thankfully Tartine, wasn’t far away (18^th/ Gueuerro) so we continued the walk.  Julian was getting a bit tired of walking (!!) but thankfully we made it to Tartine without any bribery.  There was a short queue which moved very slowly but it gave us an opportunity to talk to others in the line.  We talked to a couple from Singapore and they commented on how dirty it was here.  I so agree, but it is no different to New York for me.  Julian says that everywhere smells (I think it smells like China – not in a good way). 

There wasn’t a huge selection, but I decided on pastries as that is what I know them for.  I bought a croissant, an almond croissant, a pain aux chocolat and a Morning bun (sugared, orange scented croissant style scroll).  They all looked amazing.  I really wanted to buy a cake but really couldn’t justify it :)

That was packaged up and we headed up the street to the Bi-Rite Cremery which is another institution here in SF.  They had a quirky selection of flavours but Julian went for a sickly sweet white chocolate and raspberry and  I went for a Blue Bottle coffee flavour.  

 The ice cream shop was next to Dolores park which was meant to have a cool kids playground however it had all been dug up and there was nothing there.  Thankfully there was grass, so we sat down and ate the ice cream.  Then the boys ran off being crazy little boys but having an excellent time.  I sat down to enjoy the Tartine goodies but I was so disappointed.  I only liked the croissant.  I found the almond croissant had a nice flavour but was very stodgy.  The Morning bun was way too sweet but Julian and Steve didn’t mind it.  The pain aux chocolat was ok but also on the stodgy side.  Maybe I had built it up too much in my mind before I got there?  Rohan enjoyed the croissant, so it wasn’t all bad.

The transport options were pretty limited in the Mission, so we walked back to the 16^th Street BART station and went back to the hotel.

Julian had seen a Blue Angels plane toy in our travels yesterday and kept on asking if we could go back, so we decided to do that this afternoon.  This time we caught a streetcar on Market st which was meant to take us all the way to Fisherman’s wharf.  However, only 2 stops into our journey, 20m ahead of us a cyclist was struck by a bus. About 20 emergency services vehicles were on the scene but there wasn’t anything to be done.  We had to abandon the streetcar and walk past the scene.  Julian was the best little boy and looked at the buildings rather than the road - he didn't need a memory of that.  So we walked some more and ended up catching another Streetcar at the end of the Embarcadero.  We took this to Pier 39 where, amongst the crowd, we spotted a Blue Angels souvenir booth.  Julian had his Blue Angel.

With all the streetcar changing around, we missed the Blue Angels show, but now we had to deal with the crowds that were down at the bay again watching them.  So we walked up to Fisherman's Wharf to find Ghiradelli Square which had was all about that famous chocolate shop.  The weather had turned again and was quite chilly but thankfully we had sweatshirts this time.  However after all of that walking, and the weather change, no one wanted the Iced chocolates that we had walked there to eat! 

So we decided to catch a bus (or a series of buses) back to the hotel.  That wasn't a smart idea as the roads were packed again and the bus crawled for a few blocks before we decided the the 30 min rest was enough and we headed out on foot again.  

The plan was to walk to Chinatown for dinner which was about as far as we walked the first day.  Julian was a trooper and walked most of the way.  We had a nice chat with a women who also had a toddler in a stroller.  Julian said that we didn't live here, that we lived in Australia.  She asked where do you think I am from.  America!  Julian yelled.  Her daughter (in spanish) recommended seeing the Sea Lions at the Pier.  Julian and the girl had fun pretending to be sea lions!  We followed them down through the Stockton Street tunnel on discover we had walked all the way through Chinatown.  What we had walked through had no restaurants so I was confused.  Apparently we were both correct - I only knew about the tourist Chinatown, so after a few directions from the woman, we walked up there.

First up in Chinatown are souvenir shops and we were giving up hope.  Rohan was having a little tantrum as he was cold, tired and hungry.  We felt like really crappy parents right then.  Thankfully after a whinge on my part to Steve, a group of Australians said there were heaps of eateries just ahead.  We walked into the first one we saw and order rice.  And chicken with Broccoli. And Chicken with snowpeas.  And 2 Tsingtao beers.

Rohan's body decided that number 2's were required before we ate (yay) but when the food arrived it made us all so happy.  Rohan ate chicken and rice.  Julian ate everything.  The best meal so far!

After we had all calmed down, Julian got in the pram and I carried Rohan back to the hotel.  Steve and I can eat all the fries we want as there is no chance of us gaining weight here!  We stopped off at Walgreens as we had already run out of nappies.

Back at the hotel, the boys were bathed and asleep by 8:30pm.  We are slowly getting them back into a routine.