San Francisco is a city full of transplants and tourists, visitors and vagabonds, sightseers and settlers... It's a place everyone wants to visit and many want to live. It embodies a sense of magic that draws people from near and far... Some stay for a few days, others a few years.
The one thing you can be sure of though when you meet someone new in San Francisco, is that it won't be long before they ask, "Where are you from?" It's one of my favorite questions. So much better than "Where do you work?" or "Can I get your digits?" or "You're not looking for anything serious, right?" because I get to answer every time with:
"I'm from San Francisco."
I've lived a lot of places in my, ahem, *short* time on this earth, and though I loved all of them for one reason or another (except maybe Provo, Utah, for obvious reasons. See: reform school. Also, have you seen the size of a Manhattan closet?), there's no other place I'd rather call home.
So you can imagine how stoked I was when the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau asked me to be a part of their Shop SF blogger campaign. (That's right, I can say stoked because I'm from California; that's how it works.) I mean, first of all, let's not kid ourselves. I'm going to be shopping anyway. (What recession?!) So why not blog about it? Plus, I get to do what I would normally do: shop, drink, explore, drink, play, drink, eat, drink, discover (new drinks), mock (well, just a little bit), drink, and write about my favorite place in the whole wide world: San Francisco.
I hope you'll hang out with me on this adventure for the next couple of weeks as I share with you all the things I love about SF.
Here are just a few of them now:
What's San Francisco's best-kept secret? One of my favorite places to go at sunset is the Wave Organ. The Wave Organ is an acoustic pipe sculpture on the shore of the bay by the Golden Gate Yacht Club. You can sit on the benches and listen to a symphony that varies according to the tide.
What's something that every visitor should do? Explore Golden Gate Park. (Did you know? It's 20% bigger than Central Park!)
What's your favorite "Only in San Francisco" experience? I feel like EVERY SF experience is "Only in San Francisco," but I'll have to go with: 49ers Games. Especially when we win.
What's your favorite neighborhood? Making me pick seems cruel... But I'm going to go with Cole Valley because it's my 'hood and it has everything I need (except clothing stores) and is home to my favorite restaurant, Zazie. It's also walking distance to Haight Street and Golden Gate Park.
What's your favorite spot in San Francisco to:
Eat: Zazie
Shop: Hayes Valley
Celebrate: Saying Zazie twice seems excessive, so I'll go with a bottle of champagne and a picnic by the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park.
Take in the view: Twin Peaks
People-watch: The entire city, but specifically Haight Street, The Marina and MUNI. For reasons that seem fairly obvious, if not slightly cruel.
Lose yourself: The fog
Rejuvenate: The Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park
Sleep: My bed on clean-sheet night
Thanks to Beth Wan for the photo. You can see more of her awesome SF pics here: http://www.citylove.typepad.com/
ahhh makes me SO proud to live here :)
Speaking of places to take in the view, I've been doing a bike ride from Mission to Tiburon the last few months and it is among the most beautiful collages of scenery you could possibly put together in a single afternoon. If you decide to take the Embarcadero (which I'm not sure I recommend, it's not the best route but it's got it's moments), once you get to Marin you get the added bonus of being able to look back across the water to count your steps. It probably sounds somewhat trivial but riding the 20 or so miles it took to get you there, it's both rewarding and beautiful.
Of course the downside is you have to hop on a fucking bike and sweat and pedal and deal with surly performance cyclists coming the other direction for 20-something miles to get there, so it's not EXACTLY perfect but it's pretty close and all that other crap doesn't bother me much.
Plus, once you're in Tiburon, you can get drinks at Sam's, my favorite place across the bay! (And - hint hint - you can take the ferry back to avoid the ride home. It docks less than 50 yards from Sam's.)
http://www.samscafe.com/
Did you know the Wave Organ was developed by an artist-in-residence at the Exploratorium, another truly Only in San Francisco place? And they've got a great gift shop with fun, funky and unique merchandise.
Yeah I don't think I want to try that ride back. There's a reason those performance cyclists coming the other way on the bridge are so surly and it's because they've been climbing for like 30-45 minutes or more :)