48 Hours in San Francisco — Taylor Mikiska

We drove from LA to San Francisco the Thursday after Thanksgiving. Joey's band- Family Hahas was set to play a show at San Francisco State. We packed up all the gear and left as soon as my Thursday morning class at The Wall ended. 5ish hours later, we pulled up to the school. As we were looking at load in instructions, we got word that the show was cancelled due to a power outage and possible gas leak. At first everyone was a little bummed but after making a plan to hit the town sooner than originally planned, we all started feeling pretty excited again.

I had anticipated this trip being mostly about them playing a show. I knew we'd have the next day to explore, and I had a pretty specific list of places I wanted to go, but the show not happening really changed my perspective. It made the whole trip more spontaneous. I can be a bit of a control freak when it comes to these kinds of short trips. I always have a way over ambitious list of things I want to see and I'm adamant about crossing each thing off. I get disappointed when I don't get the pictures I was hoping to. I can get pretty bitchy about where we eat and only spending money on things that were part of my plan. Side note, I know it doesn't sound like it, but that approach has it's pros. We see a lot, we eat really well, and usually I'm just with Joey and he really brings a lot of calm to the chaos I can create. BUT for this trip, I let go a bit. We spent time with friends, drank $3 beers, I played pool for the first time and was actually pretty good at it! I mean, I still had a list haha and we still walked nearly 10 miles on our one full day there but I also went with the flow and really really enjoyed it. Read on to see what we did...

I'll just come right out and say it, most trips I've had to San Francisco have consisted of me eating a lot of fancy meals and coffee. I spent a month there for work and my main interests were fancy bars, coffee shops, and restaurants. It was the first time I'd ever been given a daily stipend for meals and I was living for it. On that extended trip, I found myself returning to The Mill (pictured above) as often as I could. It was the only place I really insisted we visit on this trip.

I knew it would be the perfect place to start our walking tour of San Fran. The weather was perfect while we were there. It was a little brisk which made all the walking we did super comfortable. We took the Bart from our air bnb in Daly City into San Fran. Confession- I'm really weary of public transportation. I don't like feeling like I'm not fully in control and worry that anything could happen and I'll just be stuck. But in the theme of going with the flow, I tried my best to fully embraced it and it made the day so much nicer to not have to worry about parking at all! We got off the Bart and walked through Alamo Square humming the Full House theme song until we hit our first food and coffee stop at The Mill. We each got toast- it is the thing to get. I got seasonal jam, Joey got cream cheese and pepper. Go here. Get any of the toasts with anything on them. They are all perfect, I promise. Our next stop was Golden Gate park. We mapped it out and figured we could hit Haight Ashbury too if we just walked from The Mill. We took Haight pretty much all the way and agreed we would stop if anything caught our eye.

We popped into a guitar shop, a record store, and a sock shop- like outrageous socks only nothing but socks shop and managed not to buy anything! A small miracle, truly. It was really cute. One of my favorite things about San Francisco is all the different neighborhoods. Even though it's a compact city, you can feel and see the differences from place to place. This was pretty bad blogger of me, but I didn't rememeber the names of any of the shops we went into or take pictures in them. I was just enjoying stroll! Once we got to the park, we decided to head towards the Japanese Tea Garden. Golden Gate park is massive. I've been twice for Outside Lands, and nothing looked remotely familiar to me when we got into the park this time, so it was googlemaps to the rescue getting us oriented. The Japanese Tea Garden was another place on my "to see" list so I was excited we were getting to it! Just so ya know, It's $9 for non SF residents, but totally free Monday, Wednesday, and Friday before 10am.

The tea garden was busier than I thought it would be! We kept a pretty slow pace and looped around a few times just to make sure we didn't miss anything. Even though it was busy, it was quiet and peaceful. They have a little gift shop and cafe with tea and snacks as well. We didn't stop to eat or drink though because our next stop was China Town and we were planning to have a dumpling feast. I had heard from multiple friends who grew up in and around the bay that dumplings are a must eat when you're there and I hadn't had them yet on any of my trips! We were all craving dumplings, and had recommendations for a few spots, but we also knew we wanted to see the lanterns and architecture in China Town, so we literally lyfted to "China Town" with no specific destination and figured we'd Yelp our way through when we got there. We ended up at Bund Shanghai but unfortunately, I was so completely consumed by our meal that I didn't take any pictures. It was great though and super affordable, which is another thing I love about SF. I mentioned before that I've eaten at a lot of $$$ places in San Francisco, but not having the stipend this time around, I was pleasantly surprised by all of the affordable, delicious options in every part of town. Also, I'd say China Town SF is a must see. I had a blast walking into all of the shops and taking in the colors and styles and buildings.

From China Town, we walked through the Financial District until we hit the Ferry Building. I pretty much put my phone away for the rest of the night except to lyft back to our air bnb after lots of laughs and PBR.

In my real, not on a trip life, I wake up between 5 and 5:30am. After that long night out though, I slept all the way until 9 the next morning! We packed up quickly and said goodbye to our lil air bnb. I told Joey that we should make a quick out of the way pit stop at Muir Woods and I'm so so so glad we did. San Francisco is really close to some breathtaking greenery and it seemed silly to go all that way and not venture out a bit to see it. FYI there's a $10 admission fee to Muir Woods, and I thought it was worth every penny. National Parks and protected lands are important to me. I hope they stay that way, so $10 seemed worth it. It's lush and green and kind of like that place in Star Wars where the Ewoks live.

The pictures don't quite do it justice. If you have the chance and an extra $10, Muir Woods is a top notch place to spend it. There's a cafe in the gift shop that has fantastic cornbread and tomato soup, perfect for warming up after your chilly walk in the forest. We hit the road back to LA right after we finished eating.

Until next time, San Fran...in the mean time though, let me know your favorite Bay Area spots for my next trip!