San Francisco: Chinatown & more

Since we went to bed early the previous day, we were up rather early the following morning.
We quickly picked up tickets at Fisherman's Wharf for the cable cars to take us down to Chinatown.

I haven’t been to a Chinatown since I lived in the city so you could say that I was pretty excited to check it out in San Francisco. It honestly felt like we had stepped into a new world/country. The banks, restaurants, grocery stores were all in Chinese which obviously shouldn’t have been a surprise but for some reason I couldn't help but to point it out. Mrs. Captain Obvious over here.

We decided that we’d also eat in Chinatown and that was quite the experience. After walking around quite a while for a restaurant to eat at, we decided on New Woey Loy Goey and were the only tourists in the entire restaurant. Everyone around us were speaking Chinese and we wondered (just being honest here) if maybe this wasn’t the smartest decision. The restaurant seemed a bit like family style where everyone, regardless if you came together, were seated together. If there was space at the table, that’s where you were seated to eat. I often feel that sometimes you have to feel a little uncomfortable (which at first I did) but once I got my food (which was so delicious) all my discomfort went away and I felt like a person who was just eating at a restaurant with other patrons. The bartender was extremely helpful and kind and helped us narrow down what to eat. We had the best wonton soup of our lives and we both wished that we had gotten two orders each.

Excuse the crappy pictures below. The restaurant was very dimly lit with no natural light peeking through.

After we ate, we picked up a few trinkets/souvenirs in Chinatown and then went
to Sutter Station Tavern in the financial district for drinks.

After that we headed back to our hotel to get ready for the evening. When we were walking out to get dinner, I realized that my outfit matched our hotel’s art wall. So of course I had Sean snap a quick picture for me. It's not every day you match the wall art.

We decided to go back to Bistro Boudin this night since we had a great experience a few days prior. I ordered empanadas and a Pinot Noir and Sean ordered a Cuban sandwich and a Manhattan. I enjoyed my dish but Sean said it wasn't the best Cuban sandwich he has had. When I asked him how his sandwich was, he said, "it isn't bad but it isn't great either".

After we ate we took an Uber to the Mission District and we stopped at a bar that I can't remember the name of. It just wasn't our scene so we took an Uber to Gold Dust Lounge for karaoke due to the recommendation of the bartender at Bistro Boudin. We should have listened to him in the first place. When we got to Gold Dust Lounge, Sean tricked me by saying that we should both do karaoke so being in good spirits (read: wine) I decided on Zombie by The Cranberries. It was so much fun but when I did it Sean decided that he wouldn’t. I guess he didn’t want to compete with my excellent voice, ha. We had such a good time with the locals who informed us that they did karaoke with each other every Wednesday night. They were all so incredibly good too!

While we were walking back to our hotel room we stopped at a small store to pick up several bottles of water. An older guy stopped Sean to ask him where he got that diamond. We were both confused so I asked the guy, what diamond? He said, "You, you're the diamond!" That caught us both off guard and we laughed out loud. It was a great way to end an already great day! :)