goodbye california, hello san francisco!

for the memorial day weekend, my family decided to have a litel san francisco road trip! i have been wanting to go back ever since the last time i was there for a band trip 3 years ago. not only i was looking forward to the busy city life i love, i found it in my favor to use this opportunity for nice shop photos. coincidentally, i already had a road trip t-shirt design when i first got into screen-printing but put it aside due to it being too ambitious. i dont really talk about the never-ending obstacles when it comes to my screen-printing experience but it was so relieving when i succeeded my first 4 color!!

unlike the past three times we went to san francisco, we did a lot less touristy things this time. the first thing we did was go to daiso (i love daiso and go about twice a week). besides that, i really enjoyed doing the "normal" things in the city. oh yeah but ofc we went to some tourist attractions like the bridge, the park, and the wharf.

things that i found surprising 

although i have been to san francisco a few times prior, there were things i didnt notice before. doing less touristy things allowed us to see more of what it is like in the city. i was only here for three days this time so correct me if im wrong or if you wanna elaborate haha

people don't mind waiting in lines

something i noticed was that there were always lines (not for covid regulations). i felt like there was always a line everywhere we went. like while walking through japan center, we saw many long lines for dessert shops. people were waiting for 30 minutes for a cute animal crepe. but i admit that the crepes were amazing.

during dinner, my family decided to go to this dessert cafe that sold drinks, korean shaved ice, and cake after we finished eating. before going, we put ourselves on the yelp waitlist with 25 parties ahead. when we got there for our expected time, there was a huge crowd inside and out the small space. my family and i waited for about 40 minutes to be seated. it was very busy and we got our table 35 minutes after their closing hour. we weren't even one of the last parties there. i felt bad being there because the employees were still polite even under the chaos. 

i might just be an impatient person but i thought that 30 minutes was a long wait when its fine in sf? idk i might be wrong

boba shops close earlier

after finishing dinner the next day, we decided to get boba. i looked at the list of shops my friends recommended. it was 8:30 pm and the majority of the places on the list were closed. even though there were still a handful of other places open, it was unexpected to see that many shops close at an early hour.

a lot of people wear masks

down in orange county, there are plenty of people who donut wear masks. if you go to busy public places like the irvine spectrum, there are a good 35% not wearing one. because san francisco are one of the big cities, i assumed that there were going to be a lot of people maskless. i was just surprised that many people wore masks in public areas or when they would just walk down the sidewalk by themselves. 

how cold the average weather is

the times i went to san francisco were all during the winter. it was absolutely freezing. i assumed that the weather would be warm now since we went during the summer. although it was less freezing, it was still pretty cold. we even drove to the uniqlo in daly city to buy my grandpa a puffy jacket. my family wore up to 3 layers of clothing along with a heavy jacket. average summer weather in san francisco is when we wear that many layers down here in socal. we took a hot foot bath at the end of the day because we were so cold. we are so weak 😓

yeah!! pretty much

i love being in san francisco !! i hope to go again soon and see more of the city. :]]] also norcal boba or socal boba ? comment below ehehe. i only tried a few places here so any recs for the next time i go? although the boba shops i went to were decent, i love the boba down here more. but then again, there is nothing to do other than getting boba where i live. 

 also check out the socks i bought!! they r my new fav