Be adventurous with your food choices. How about some jellyfish?
San Francisco’s Chinatown is the second-largest Asian community in North America and is as old as the city itself. But there are really two Chinatowns here, though: one for tourists centred on Grant Avenue and another for locals centred on Stockton Street. Dip in and out of both for wonderful dining options and a unique glimpse of a world within a world.
In Chinatown, it pays to wander off the beaten track and down the side alleys. There you will hear the muffled buzz of conversation and the clatter of game tiles, and you can see temples with wafting incense and hanging pieces of laundry flapping like flags overhead.
Cornucopia
The SF Chinatown is considered by many to be the birthplace of several Westernised Chinese dishes, such as Chop Suey, and also where delicacies such as Dim Sum were introduced to the United States. Even today its Dim Sum tea houses are still a major tourist attraction. But for the real deal, head to the Stockton Street markets. Here, between pull carts and dozens of stalls, you can find anything: dried mushrooms, sea cucumber, bundles of bok choy — you name it.
American Homeopath
Waverly Place is home to the district’s acupuncture and Chinese medicine shops. Also tucked away there is the Tin How Temple — the oldest Taoist temple in the city. Dozens of illuminated paper lanterns hover overhead and plates of orange and bread rest on an altar with a shrine of Buddha statues. Photography is not allowed, so you have to see it with your own eyes.
Please note: your guide will not be joining you on the island, as private guides are not permitted to operate on the island. On arrival at Alcatraz, take an audio tour at a leisurely pace to hear tales of notorious felons such as Al Capone and Robert Franklin Stroud in this former fort, a military prison and maximum-security federal penitentiary. Once you are finished exploring Alcatraz Island (most people spend about 2 hours), you can hop any return ferry to San Francisco, where you will be dropped off at Pier 33.
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