What alternatives to Alcatraz look like

Wednesday ended up being a great example of why it's important to stay flexible with your plans when you are on vacation. We had CityPass booklets to help us with our adventures in the city (thanks Mom and Dad!), and one of the perks we didn't use the first time we got city passes when Andrew and I visited San Fran with Loni in 2008 was the Alcatraz Cruises. Andrew has been several times, but I have only watched The Rock, and assuming it isn't a perfect replacement for the experience, wanted to go see it. We booked our trip out to Alcatraz ahead of time, and were set and ready to go explore the island at 12pm.

We got up early, grabbed some bagels on our way out and took the Caltrain into the city (we are now experts at using ClipperCards).

We actually got into the city early enough to stop in at the Ferry Building Marketplace, where we picked up some pastries and coffee (I had an apple turnover and Andrew had an empanada, but we ate them too fast for photographic evidence).

We took a quick street car, then walked the rest of the way down the pier!

 Being once again slightly ahead of time, we walked the rest of the way down to Pier 39 to say hi to the harbor sea lions, who were noisy and lazy all at once.

 

We walked back to the pier for the Alcatraz ferry and waited a bit for the 11:30 trip to head out. Unfortunately when 11:30 rolled around, instead of loading onto the ferry the massive group of people in line poured out from the waiting area and mobbed the ticket booths-- turns out the water was too choppy to get to the island so they cancelled all of the remaining ferries for the day. 

Rats!

Lucky for us, we had plenty to do! First next stop was the Exploratorium:

 We explored the Exploratorium (because what else is one to do?) until about 2:30ish, then realized we were getting extremely hungry and needed to solve the issue of food. Our original plan was to get chowder at the pier at Le Boudin, but the plans had been derailed for the day anyway, so we once again went off book and decided to find some dim sum.

Which we did! 

Our dim sum came from Wing Sing Dim Sum. There were no English signs and everybody spoke Chinese, but we figured it out (largely because of Andrew) and enjoyed this incredible food.

We still had some time to kill in the city before we were going to meet up with Kristine and Hunter in the evening, so we went to Macy's where I ooed and aahed over the Inglot counter (we don't have one of these in Utah!), and then we got Ben and Jerry's and ate ice cream in Union Square Park.

 

Because after doing all that, we clearly needed to go get MORE food, we met up with Kristine and Hunter, chatted at their place for a bit, and then walked into downtown Palo Alto and caught a meal at Tacolicious. It doesn't sound like a very dignified place, but this joint was HIP. They weren't quite entirely tapas, but were sort of 'small plates style' with a bunch of different gourmet/fusion tacos and other fun dishes, like house-made mini churros (THE BEST I HAVE EVER TASTED), 'drunken' black beans, and a mexican 'apple pie' that was maybe better described as a deconstructed sandwich-style apple empanada? I don't know, don't listen to me, I just ate it. It was really dark at the restaurant, so unfortunately no pictures survived.

Oh, and I can't forget, we moved on over to Kristine and Hunter's place at this point for sleep overs! They were SO kind and generous and let us crash on a (n incredibly comfortable) aerobed in their living room, and we were able to spend more time with them. I'm really moved by the generosity of the people who care about us.