Day 3 and dim sum

Today's mission was to find dim sum in downtown, ride some cable cars, see the Palace of fine arts at night, finally see the "painted ladies", and come home with sore ass muscles.

The mission was 99% complete.

Staying up til 4am last night didn't fair very well will waking up early to get the ball rolling so we decided we could use a few extra hours of sleep in the morning. After going to a rite aid about 10 miles away (because we apparently just like driving around), we got back in the morning to have some breakfast and wait for my brother to meet up at the hotel to head out to San Fran together...at 2pm.

Initially the plan was to take the BART to the Union Station and walk around til our toes fell off, but we opted out of public transportation and drove in to town, parked the car in a $10 lot and began our 5 hour walking tour. I immediately wanted to hitch the Powell cable car up towards Russian Hill which consequently brought us right next to Chinatown.
I'd never been to this part of town so I had no clue where we would find dim sum and how we would get there. Of course one or my most favorite things about San Francisco, is the fact that people are actually friendly and helpful. A lady overhead us talking about getting dim sum and quickly suggested a place just off the street where we were getting off the cable car. And so it was...a tiny crowded hole in the wall, with stacks of dim sum baskets.

The menu? All in Chinese.

Another lady in the line in front of us offered some sense..pointed to the non-hospital-sending selections and even mentioned of the unknown discount if you buy a certain amount. Again, thank you ladies for making this process so painless and delicious. This was by far the most pleasant experience I'd ever had with getting any ethnic food in a non-English speaking place. The dim sum? Mouth watering. I stuck with pork. And munched on a red bean one for dessert.


This of course now meant we had to walk off the calories we just ingested....and god knows we did. I think we hit every hill there is in the bay area...somehow ending up going uphill both ways....in the snow...with no shoes...

Anyway. It sucked at times (and only because I'm clearly in worse shape than I thought I was), but overall the walking was amazing. We headed back to the car and decided we deserved a hot cup of cocoa. Here came the root of all evil...the Ghirardelli chocolate shop.

And funny enough when we got there I wanted nothing to do with chocolate so I ordered a waffle cup of strawberry ice cream....and destroyed it in 5 minutes flat. Fortunately my voice has been hoarse and scarce in the last few days, so when I lost it from freezing my vocal chords with the icy goodness, nobody really noticed.

And when we finally got back to our room, nothing was more welcoming than a steamy hot shower with incense burning. This cold has nothing on me this time around. What's a little snot and a few days of sounding like Joan Rivers gonna do to my plans?

I got my dim sum in Chinatown, rode the cable car, and managed to even see the amazing Palace of Arts....those painted ladies keep evading me, however. Maybe today, those ladies that helped with the dim sum escapade were our painted ladies.

The real ones will have to wait til Saturday morning, when I will absolutely go snap a picture before we head out home.

Thank god for such a busy day and hopefully a less strenuous one tomorrow as we head up to Napa.