After making our way around Fisherman's Wharf, we landed back at the Ferry Building where we met up with Bob. I snapped the above photo mostly to preserve an image of palm trees which I had never seen before. I was surprised at how many varieties of palm trees - these being my favorite. Wouldn't you just love to have one in your front yard?!
Next, we hopped a cable car headed for Chinatown. Of all the modes of transportation, this was by far the most exciting! What do you think is going through Tyler's mind as he realizes we are going to ride on the car above? Something like, "Cool, not only can I stand, but I can hang out over the edge!" Which is exactly what he did.
Instead of taking us down the main street for tourists, Bob had us stay on the car for a couple extra blocks and get off in more of a residential district of Chinatown. His reason: we needed to really see the way these people live. It is very much different from us.
There was a little bakery on almost every block. Buns, buns, and more buns. Plain buns, sweet buns, hot buns, cold buns, buns with creamy filling, buns with meat filling. Here's Bob picking a few of these tasty treats for us to sample.
San Francisco Chinatown is the largest Chinatown outside of Asia. It has the largest population density in the U.S. second only to Manhattan. Many of these people have a living space consisting of an 8x10ft room. Basically a bedroom. And this is where the entire family sleeps. They have shared bathrooms and kitchens and many of them eat their meals and socialize in the little bakeries and restaurants of these back streets. What a thrill to experience being the minority! We were in China!
Notice how clean this alley is. As we made our way to the more 'touristy' streets, it was apparent that even the alleys have become tourist attractions and places of business. There are tiny little shops that open only into the allies! See that open door up the alley on the left...
...inside a man was sitting, making fortune cookies. Folding, stuffing, pinching, cookie after cookie. We had to pay 50 cents to take his picture. If that's his wages, I wonder how much he makes in a day?
This 'touristy' street is decorated with lanterns and the signs are printed in English. Not nearly as exciting as the 'authentic' Chinese culture a few blocks back. Food and merchandise on this street was twice as much as where the locals did their shopping. We spent several hours wandering and eating and listening to Bob's interesting stories and finally boarded the cable car headed for home.
Whew! What a day! We all had a good sleep.
2 comments:
Wow, that looks like fun!
Like, like, like. Thanks again for another enjoyable day with ya!
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