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Re: San Francisco
Posted: January 30 25, 10:07 am
by IMADreamer
Joe Shlabotnik wrote: ↑January 29 25, 5:13 pm
Monterey bay is 2-3 hours away and awesomely beautiful. But it would take 1 of your 3 days.
Laguna Seca raceway is there too. If that sort of thing interests you they offer racing schools at various times throughout the year.
Re: San Francisco
Posted: January 30 25, 10:40 am
by heyzeus
Just to echo what everyone else said. Stay away from the Tenderloin and you'll be ok. Yes, there will be homeless people around, but walk with purpose and you'll be fine.
I highly recommend a visit to the food hall at the Ferry Building. And check to see if the farmer's market is open at the Ferry Building on one of the days you're there. It's really awesome.
I don't know if you have kids and if so if you're traveling with them, but the Exploratorium is super cool. It's a like an interactive science museum for kids in an old wharf building.
There's a really cool museum of old time video games and coin operated machines at Fisherman's Wharf, if you're up that way. It's called Musee Mecanique. Bring quarters! My favorite is what passed for bawdy/risque machines back in like the 1930s. Funny stuff.
If you have the chance to walk or bike across the Golden Gate Bridge...do it. If you're lucky it'll be a clear day. That's kind of a big if, but if it happens, it's magical.
Re: San Francisco
Posted: January 30 25, 1:23 pm
by sighyoung
Smith Corks One wrote: ↑January 30 25, 5:45 am
Visiting San Francisco for the first time? I’m jealous. It’s probably my favorite city in the nation.
Funny story - my wife moved here from Vietnam in 2017. She frequently complained about how boring and flat it is (“there’s nothing in (southern) Illinois but corn and soybeans. This is not what I thought America was!” First time I took her to SF, almost 2 years later, we’re walking from Lombard Street down to Fisherman’s Wharf, it’s the most beautiful, clear day, and she says, “THIS is what I always thought America was!”
Was most recently there in 2023, with my wife, her parents (their first trip to America, don’t speak a word of English), and my then 2 year old son. We did Chinatown, then they asked if there was a Vietnamese area. I knew there was a Little Saigon in the Tenderloin so we headed that way. It was a small area to begin with, but I guess Covid totally wiped it out. We only saw two restaurants that were still open, and we had to walk through some real sketchiness to get to one of them. Just wide open drug using and dealing right out there on the sidewalks. But you know what happened? Every time we got close to one of the groups, I would hear someone say “kid” and they would stop whatever they were doing until after we passed. I thought that was actually cool. Then we were standing on a corner waiting to cross the street and some psychotic dude started walking towards us spouting some gibberish, and this other guy who appeared to be a drug dealer got up in his face and said, “BACK OFF!”
The restaurant was great, owner was awesome. Said he also owned some houses he rents and was telling us about one he had just bought…a 1 bedroom with 900 square feet for 1.3 million.
Anyway, you’ll be fine.
I had a similar experience in Little Saigon many years prior, when I was staying in an old, old hotel just north of the Tenderloin district.
I went to a restaurant around the corner that was recommended by a guidebook, and the meal was great, but the street scene was so depressing. Addicts were leaning on parking meters, covering themselves up with their jackets while they smoked crack. There was a big dumpster across the street that I could see clearly from the restaurant's front windows, and it was no exaggeration to say that a guy was dumpster diving for at least 45 minutes the entire time I ate my meal.
I will say that I remember thanking a bus driver (I think this was my trip to Amoeba Music, and boy did I score a haul of great cd's), and you could see the driver was kind of shocked by it and thought I was lovably quaint and naive.
Re: San Francisco
Posted: January 31 25, 6:24 am
by mtcefc
Cheers for all the tips.
As I have said I have been to a lot of places over there and seen homeless people in various places and had no issues.
The video made it look like some zombie apocalypse and if you poke your head out the window you will be mobbed.
I will make note of some of these suggestions closer to the time.
Re: San Francisco
Posted: January 31 25, 11:02 pm
by Richie Allen
Been numerous times and it's one of my favorite cities in the world so I was saddened to hear how bad it had gotten in the past few years until we went toward the end of 2023 and it appeared to me to be exactly like it's always been. Still love it and can't wait to go back.