From the Ferry Building, we wandered through the business district and a few moments later we recognised familiar brands like Zara, Uniqlo, Saks etc. from a distance. We only had the a few hours to look around but resisted the urge to shop. I may have regretted that decision because some department stores are hard to come by e.g. I didn’t know there aren’t any Nordstroms in NYC, only Nordstrom Rack (outlet store). The one thing I spent money on (other than a Jamba Juice) was a travel mist from Khiels which you can’t get anywhere else but America. Its a new travel essential for me!

Cupcake van!

Spotted the Canon building

Love, love these buildings

Macy’s! Did not go in sadly.

Long queues for the over priced cable car ride for experience’s sake, I think it was $7 which you could pay using the Muni card… but they didn’t scan ours though..

One cable car line that runs through a few streets, the operators had to manually push the car around to go back the other way!

Chinatown

We decided to check out Chinatown – which is supposedly the biggest Chinatown in America to see what its like. It was getting dark pretty quickly too so the place wasn’t buzzing or anything. It felt a little like Hong Kong to me with the stores selling cheap clothing and an abundance of dried seafood shops.

Golden Gate Fortune Cookies

I remember reading about this famous Fortune Cookie Shop/Factory that makes Fortune Cookies on the spot and since we were nearby we went to take a look. It was situated in a dark alleyway, which felt a little scary walking into at 6PM. You’ll notice the ladies still making cookies the moment you set foot in there, it smelled like cookies of course! We did walk out with a bag of cookies to try, I wish we could’ve got a bag of freshly made cookies but it was still pretty good regardless.

Only just noticed the ‘Adult’ cookies… 

Wanted to check out the egg tarts from Golden Gate Bakery too but they were on vacation!

We decided on Chinese food for dinner at Hong Kong Claypot Restaurant – we have been away from home for over a week so we were craving something un-American, plus we thought we could save some money by having Chinese.

A combination claypot with veggies (been craving greens for a while!) satisfied our tummies just right. Not bad for $30 or so for the 2 of us!

We took the bus back to where we started in Downtown SF in order to get on a cable car back to our Airbnb. I loved seeing how the Christmas lights lit up the streets! Wish we could’ve spent more time shopping around here (and if only the exchange rate was better!). Maybe next time SF!