San Francisco, day 3!

My cousin who lives in the Bay area saw on Instagram 

that we were in the city.

She kept texting a list of places we MUST go to eat.

Food is a very important part of vacations for us!

I laid in bed with a huge list of things we still needed to see and devour.

I was overwhelmed with how we were going to get it all in.

We didn't have a full day, our flight was leaving at 5.

At 6 I jumped out of bed and informed everybody to wake up!

We needed to get an earlier start than originally planned.

We got ready, packed up and checked our bags at the front desk.

Mr. Holmes was number one on her list.

People start lining outside the door an hour before opening 

for their famous cruffin!

Which is a cross of croissant and a muffin.

Much like the cronut.

Apparently they sell out the first 30 minutes!

They opened at 8 and we got their probably 15 minutes before...

with only 2 other people in line.

I was confused because I thought it was going to be mass chaos.

We started talking to a couple and she had read rave reviews on pinterest about this place.

The doors opened and we pushed ourselves in for some sugary carb goodness!

Where are the cruffins?

"We don't serve cruffins until 9."

WHAT??? 

No wonder there wasn't a line yet!

I was super bummed, but they assured me everything they had out was basically

a cruffin, just baked in a different shape.

Same recipe and everything.

With that, we basically ordered one of everything!

In true San Francisco fashion, it is a random tiny bakeshop in the middle of a ghetto street.

 Hunkering down with our breakfast.

It was fun place to try!

I really wanted to ride a trolley!

We headed back to Union Square to find a trolley station.

It was crazy, the bus dropped us off and we looked across the street to a trolley pulling up!

We ran across the street and asked if we could get on.

The trolley conductor squished us on and off we went!

How perfect did that work out?

AND it was the trolley line I was wanting to ride, the Powell and Hyde trolley.

I love that it was decked out in Christmas décor.

The funny part was that we had no idea where it was taking us!

We knew we were headed down the hill towards Fisherman's Wharf,

 but who knew if it would turn and go a random direction.

Hello Lombard street!

With our luck, it stopped at Pier 39 and everybody had to get off.

Our next place we wanted to go was China town.

The workers said to jump to the next trolley over because it was leaving in

 5 minutes and China town was one of the stops.

What were the chances?!

We sat inside this time.

It was about another 10 minute ride when the conductor said this is China town!

Bye trolley!

We turned around trying to get our bearings and we spotted a Chinese hospital.

We must be at the right place.

A little further of a walk and yep, Chinese people EVERYWHERE!

I truly thought we were in a different country.

It was crazy how fast we got immersed into what felt like a whole different culture.

I was loving every minute of it. 

Since it was the weekend, everyone was out getting shopping done.

We walked upon a produce vendor making a delivery.

You can barely see his truck with hundreds of boxes flattened in the back. 

Lots of fresh produce out on the streets to purchase.

 We walked passed a restaurant with steam coming out of the window

 from them boiling fresh dumplings.

As we were watching and drooling, 

we decided to go get some authentic San Francisco Chinese food!

We couldn't read the menu, 

so we pointed and tried to understand what everything was.

Pretty sure we didn't know what half of the stuff we ordered was, but

it was all part of the experience:)

A view from upstairs where the tables were.

Laughing at what we were eating.

These were hot "bbq" pork buns. Tasted like sweet n sour something.

Pot stickers, sesame rolls, Chinese donuts, chicken dumplings. Cabbage something or another.

After our little snack, we headed out in search for another snack, lol!

We found it in a tiny little alley.

Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory!

You could literally smell the sweet cookies from the street.

We were greeted with warm, fresh, flat cookies before they get shaped.

We could hear some commotion.

The owner (we knew it was the owner because his pictures were plastered on the walls with him shaking celebrities hands), was chewing out this poor Chinese worker. 

You can see half of her backside on the left in a maroon shirt.

I wish I would have gotten a picture of him yelling at her.

It was #ackward. 

It was a good few minutes of him doing that.

He stormed out and she embarrassingly turned around, put a fake smile 

on her face and greeted us.

We think she was late to work and was the only employee that knew English.

I actually video taped some of the misshape and sent it to my friends husband that went to 

Hong Kong on his mission.

I wanted  to see if he could translate what he said to her, ha!

 He couldn't make out all of it because he was talking too fast but what

he did hear was him saying "what were you DOING?".

I guess the guy could've said it a lot meaner or sworn, but he didn't. 

Still, what a jerk!

The boys wrote some cute notes on paper for the girls.

They handed them to the workers to put in some fortune cookies for us to take home.

We also got some chocolate dipped cookies as part of their souvenirs.

Outside of the tiny factory with a specialized bag of cookies!

SO many oriental trading type of stores to shop in!

We hit a few to find some more things to take home to the girls.

We barely scratched the surface of China town, but needed to move

 onto the next activity because we were running out of time.

I love these lanterns strung across the streets.

Casey with his trusty bus map got us to Alamo Square where the painted ladies are!

My inner Full House geekiness was so excited to see this!!

I guess we passed the Mrs. Doubtfire house on the bus to Alamo Square. 

If I had of known, we would have stopped there too!

Now, this was our most anticipated stop for food. 

Tony's pizza in Italy town.

Not only did my cousin say to eat here, everybody else that we 

asked said it is the best pizza you will ever eat!

I was nervous there would be a line out the door and we wouldn't have time to wait.

Because typically there always is a long wait.

We walked up with our fingers crossed and the lady said a big party had just left and we could get seated right away!!

Our eyes were big while looking at the menu. 

It was hard to narrow it down.

So many different sauces, crusts, toppings to choose from.

We ended up getting 4 different ones, lol!

Each one did NOT disappoint!
Even the run of the mill pepperoni was amazing.

That pizza on the bottom was money.

It had a honey drizzle... I want some right now!

We had stuffed our faces when the waitress brought out our deep dish.

We had forgotten about it!

We unbuttoned our pants and started chiseling away at it!

Tony's, you were good to us.

With that, it was time to head back to the hotel and get our bags.

We called a Lyft and off we were to the airport to head home to our girlies.

They loved the fortune cookies and goodies we brought home for them.

I can't say enough how much FUN this trip was!!

Casey said he couldn't believe how the trip just flowed so perfectly.

This was a trip I didn't have scheduled out everyday and was nervous we would run out 

of time and not get everything in. 

We loved our one on one time with the boys.

We loved being with Papa and Grammy and making amazing memories.

San Fran, we will be back!!