Dec 28. Day 5. San Francisco.

We arrived at the hotel in downtown San Francisco last night.  Checked in and went for a walk to find a place for dinner. We saw a big huddle of people in front of a small Japanese noodle house so we thought it must be good. We signed our names on the wait list. We had 2 big bowls of ramen noodles, and yes the wait was worth it. Jackie saw a you-tuber whom her friend follows. She took the courage to approach the guy and asked for a picture. That was funny and weird.

Went back to the hotel and planned our today’s itinerary.

Dec 28. What we have planned was to take the hop-on, hop-off bus tour to maximize the areas we wanted to visit in a day. We went to Union Square and bought tickets for the Big Bus Tour. There are several bus tours doing this. Like any other tourists, we went to the upper deck, and braved the weather. It was cold and chilly. By the time we got to the Golden Gate North Vista Point, my hands were numb, Jackie’s face was red.  We got off the bus, and like regular tourists, took selfies, pictures, and more pictures.  We stayed on the lower deck on the way back to the downtown area, looking for the nearest stop close to our next target destination. From the local map, we saw that there’s one near the Fisherman’s Wharf bus stop.  We got off and took a leisure walk until we saw our target – In-N-Out Burger. Wow, what a line there was. Burgers, fries, coffee, soda, and chocolate shake – lunch.  Hmmmm, how do I say this… Five Guys Burgers beats In-N-Out Burgers hands down.  That’s my taste.

Our next target was also a short distance from In-N-Out – Chirrardelli Square. We stayed a little in the area, joined the line of people going for the 1000+ calorie chocolate servings – we did not buy any, just took the menu for souvenir.

We went back to the hotel to add some warm layers because of an impromptu decision – to take the last scheduled trip of the bus and do the whole loop to have a close-to-night-time view of the whole tour. We got off at the Chinatown area and took a stroll. Dinner was at one of the local restaurants in Chinatown.

We walked backed to the hotel after dinner. Tomorrow, Jackie would be flying back to New Jersey, but we wanted to explore two more places – the Japanese Tea Garden, and the Kinokuniya Building. We carefully planned how we could do both and still have time to get to the airport for her flight. Doable, without any rooms for issues and delays. Time to get some sleep. Goodnight.