Looking for Uncle Jesse: San Francisco

I took the BART from San Francisco Airport to the city.  The homes that the train went past looked the same, but each was a different colour.  I got the impression that it may have been the ghetto part of town.  None of the houses looked like the grand Victorian townhouses on Full House. 

When I exited the Powell subway station in the city, it was truly a moment of realisation that I had arrived in America.  I was faced with Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, Barney’s, Forever 21, Saks 5th Avenue, Gap and Urban Outfitters: all stores I had grown up reading about in Baby Sitters Club books and Seventeen magazine. 

I followed the street car track from the beginning of the line to Fisherman’s Wharf, walking up the steepest street I had ever been on in my life.  It felt like it was 90 degrees.  San Franciscoians must have the strongest calf muscles in the world.  The route took me through Chinatown, which made me feel that I was on the set of the Joy Luck Club, and a residential section of the city.  The apartments were all three-storey and each building on the street was a different colour - very cute.  I don’t think I was in the right area to see Full House-type houses though. 

Fisherman’s Wharf was tourist shop and tacky home decoration central.  There were a couple of stores that sold giant statues of animals and children.  This included a statue of a frog butler (he held out a lilly pad as a tray) and one of three gold dolphins jumping over each other.  Loved it.  I kept walking straight in the direction of the water and there it was - what I was looking for all along - Boudin’s bakery.  My mission for the San Francisco stopover was to eat clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl at Boudin’s.  The chowder was ordinary and bread was cold and not so great.  I’ve eaten better sourdough at Natural Tucker Bakery, Chimmy’s, Dench, Filou’s and Sugardough bakeries in Melbourne. 

The museum of old arcade games was fun.  I inserted a dime in the opium den machine, which made the figurines in the opium den set move.

The most American thing I saw was a pair of old blonde American twins who wore matching fur leopard print jackets and leopard print cowboy hats.  I didn’t have a camera with me, so tough, you are just going to have to use your imagination.