Playing Tour Guide

I'd learned before coming home that a Korean friend of mine, Cathy, was planning a trip to San Francisco with her older sister, nephew and niece at the same time I was flying back.  They'd originally planned on spending a week in the Bay Area and exploring San Francisco, Monterey, Napa, and Yosemite, but they eventually decided to just see SF for Saturday and Sunday and join a package tour for Yosemite, Los Angeles and Las Vegas for the rest of their trip so they wouldn't have to worry about driving.  This also worked for me because I wouldn't have to be their tour guide and driver (when available) for the whole first week after I got home.  Instead, we met at Fisherman's Wharf on Sunday, March 1st around noon.

I hadn't known their plans before I arrived, and it seemed they didn't really either.  They'd originally planned on getting up at 8 am and sightseeing before meeting me, but they wound up waking up very late and had only eaten a very late breakfast/early lunch of clam chowder bread bowls.  They weren't hungry for lunch and I wasn't starving yet, so we stopped at the Musée Mécanique, then walked over to Ghirardelli Square.  We went back to Pier 39 to see the sea lions, but ended up nixing plans to go to the Exploratorium and/or take a ferry under the Golden Gate Bridge due to high prices and not enough time (it was already 3 pm by that point).

We grabbed a light bite to eat at In-N-Out while we decided what to do next.  They'd wanted to see something on Lombard St., so we walked down Stockton and west on Lombard until we climbed to the top of the crookedest street.  We stopped again to get a breather and debate whether they wanted to take a bus to the Bridge or take the cable car to Powell, which would get them very close to their hotel.  They eventually decided to see the Bridge, so we walked another long stretch of Lombard before finding the bus stop we needed (#28).  At that time it was 6 pm and most of the group was running low on energy after the uphill climb, but the kids wanted steak for dinner, so we grabbed another quick bite at a KFC.

Recharged, we hopped on the bus and got to the Golden Gate right at sunset.  It was dark by the time we left, but they weren't finished yet.  They also wanted to see the city at night from Twin Peaks, so we hopped on the #28 again and rode it down to Portola.  I'm hardly an expert on SF buses, and my knowledge of SF's geography has always been spotty at best, so the only thing I had to go on was a tourist map they had gotten from their hotel.  There was almost certainly a much better way to get to Twin Peaks, but this is how we managed it.  We didn't see any bus stops and the map didn't say anything about buses along Portola, so we just walked up it for a good half hour or so in the cold and dark until we finally found a bus stop.  The driver told us where to transfer, and after a long wait we caught another bus that took us to one of the uppermost streets below the peak (but not onto the peak itself).  We eventually found stairs leading up to the top, but it was too dark to really see them (it was nearly 8:30 pm then) and we were too tired to really consider it.  We did get a very nice view from the almost-top, then walked back down to Portola and caught a bus heading to Castro and Market.

There, we waited for the streetcar that would take us up to Powell.  Unfortunately for us, 9 pm was apparently break time for the drivers, as two streetcars pulled up just shy of the stop and didn't move for another fifteen minutes.  Luckily, the first bus we got on (at 5:30 pm) gave us four-hour transfers, so we only paid for Muni once and our transfers were still good at 9:15 pm.  At Powell, we found an inexpensive, self-service-style steakhouse called Tad's Steakhouse ($15 steaks and salmon).  We ordered at the counter and picked up our food when it was ready, and the lack of tipping saved us a little money and trouble.  I got an excellent piece of salmon and the other four shared two steaks and sides; they seemed satisfied and I certainly was, so I recommend the place.

The next day they were joining the package tour to Yosemite for one day, and their bus was leaving from Japantown at 7 am, so we stopped at a Walgreens across the street to get them some food for the day.  After that, I said good night and hopped on BART around 10:45 pm.  I got back home just about at midnight.  It was an exhausting day with way more exercise than I'd planned on, but it was also quite an adventure, and I'm glad I could help show them around!