San Francisco: Birthday and Beyond

To continue my adventures in San Francisco - my birthday was Monday the 11th and also the first day the plane was in the hangar. The antenna that is installed is on the top of the plane so they had to build scaffolding and a platform to be able to access the work space. This took a couple days and it gave me time to enjoy my birthday and see more of the city.

The platform work space

I met up with my parents at their hotel near Fisherman's Wharf and we headed out towards the Ferry Building. I had some tasty coffee from a trendy shop in the Ferry Building called Blue Bottle and mom and dad got lunch. 

The Ferry Building

Inside the Ferry Building

We took a trolley down Market street and wandered around the Mission district for a bit. I really liked how SF had all these different neighborhoods and nearly everything seemed to be independently owned. We also stopped at a book store and I picked out a few books as gifts.

The evening was finished off with dinner in Chinatown with my cousin David, which was delicious and fun!

On Wednesday there was a 747 at the hangar so my coworker and I went to check it out. It was pretty awesome.

Mom was visiting with a friend from China and so Dad and I checked out a used music store recommended by cousin David. We spent three hours browsing music and bought loads of new music! I think some of my favorite acquisitions are a compilation of several Dave Brubeck albums and a bunch of 90's rock. :D 

For dinner we drove down to Mountain View and had some delicious Vietnamese food with my mom's cousin Victor. I ate prawns with the heads on for the first time ever! I was pretty proud of myself. Afterwards we drove around the Google campus and Victor told us about what it's like living there. He loves it there, and I can see why!

Thursday work finally got started so I was there the whole day. My lucky parents went up to Napa Valley and toured some of the vineyards there and it sounds like they had a wonderful time. We ate dinner at an Italian place near my hotel, which was very close to the airport in South San Francisco.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos that are not of airplane guts for the rest of the week! I worked all through the weekend, too. Friday night I stayed in and my parents met up with Victor and another of Mom's cousins. Saturday we went out for sushi in San Mateo. I loved how much Asian food there was in SF, I wish we had that here in Atlanta! I'd pig out all the time.

Oh! I did see a Gangnam Style chicken place. I took a photo for Erin. 

Sunday I met my parents for lunch and then they went home to Chicago. I was sad to see them go but since work ramped up a lot, it was good timing. That weekend was the Lunar New Year Parade through downtown, but I didn't get off work until too late and I heard there were a lot of people so I watched it on TV in my hotel. One day I will go there for the parade and make sure to get a good spot!