The first order of the day was to drop off the car. We rarely rent a car, and when we do, it is usually for just a day or so. This time, having the car for four days, we got used to it, and I was a bit sorry to let it go. How quickly we get spoiled.
The drop off was at the border of the Financial and Shopping districts. Hera's eyes lit up when I suggested we walk over into Macy's. We explored all seven floors. Hera is the shopper, while I am the one who found a piece of ideal furniture, a powered reclining sofa. It was a good thing it was a bit too big for carry-on...!
We walked over a square to Tiffany's and perused their wares, before we started to walk towards the city center.
We walked along Geary, then zig-zagged our way to another of Gail's suggestions, the Red Crawfish at 611 Larkin Street. We were handed a lunch menu of various Chinese plates, but saw no crawfish. We asked, and we were handed another menu.
Hera ordered a pound of crawfish in an extra spicy sauce, along with rice, while I also ordered a pound of their crawfish but with a medium spicy sauce, along with some Cajun fries.
They were delicious, but messy to eat. I have seen some people eat crawfish so quickly, while Hera and I had to work hard to get to each tiny morsel of meat.
Poor Hera. At one point as she struggled with the tiny crawfish shell, a splash of her extra spicy hot sauce squirted into her eye. Both our hands were covered in spicy sauce, as Hera pressed a napkin to her eye.
I motioned to a waitress, who came over and helped Hera to a washroom to wash her hands, and I told her to rinse her eyes.
Other patrons asked if everything was alright.
I had mentioned that she ordered the extra spicy sauce, and they chuckled at first thinking it was too hot for her, but then they became quite concerned when I told her that it splashed in her eye.
Hera returned, with one bloodshot eye, but with a smile on her face.
After our meal, we walked a bit around the neighborhood. We had seen city hall on one of our first walks, but we did not enter. Today, we decided to enter. It is impressive.
A free tour was starting in 10 minutes, so we decided to take it. Our guide was very pleasant and informative, and directed our attention to various aspects of the building that we might not have noticed. One of which, is that the dome of San Francisco's City Hall is the fourth largest in the world. St. Peter's at the Vatican being the largest, followed by the Duomo in Florence, then Les Invalids of Paris. The Capital in Washington is smaller, taking fifth place.
Marilyn Monroe married Joe DiMaggio here in one of the rooms, but since the building's recent renovations, couples have been getting married at the top of the wonderful staircase. While we were there, there must have been over 5 weddings that took place, one after the other.
We then hopped onto a bus, up Haight street, that included going up several blocks of very steep slopes. We got off at the beginning of the strip of shops in the Haight-Ashburry neighborhood.
We had last been here when the street was a party street filled with costumed people after they finished the B2B race. Today, less festive, it was still a fun filled street of colorful people, shops and street performers.
We walked into several shops, from vintage clothes to shoe stores.
We ended up at ChaChaCha's. A funky Latino restaurant. We ordered a half pitcher of Sangria, some fried calamari, a marinated pulled pork quesadila, and some guacamole.
Well fed, we walked across the strip once again, then a bit further, to take our bus back home.
Even though we were spoiled with the car for four days, we still did a good walk today, and the climb up the steep hill was not so bad.
Photographer's note: All today's shots were done with Samsung Galaxy SII. Yup, with a cell phone. There are days I do not feel like carring a camera. :)
Cheers,
Hera & Anthony
