Back in October, my sister Vickie and I told our other sister, Sophia, that she was going to take us to San Francisco during the holidays. Surprisingly she said yes haha! That weekend was also Melanie’s graduation ceremony so we weren’t going to leave until later that day. We ended up leaving Sacramento after 4PM and it took nearly three hours to get to our first destination, Japantown…

Japantown was first because I wanted to have dinner at a Korean BBQ joint that was across the street from the shopping plaza, Yakiniq. I’ve been there before, also with my sisters, a few Christmases ago and it was amazing. We had a good time there but it did take an hour for a table.

We ate a few rounds of meat. Eating meat by itself is good but when it’s eaten in a wrap, it’s on a whole ‘nother level! We ate meat with picked radish and rice noodle sheets…I can’t eat Korean BBQ in any other way now haha. The radish contrasts with the greasy meats and it’s like a palette cleanser.

After nearly two hours of chowing, we headed to the hotel (Marriot Marquis) which was a bitch to get to. I don’t remember what street we were on, definitely a main street, but it was absolutely packed with cars.

Random views to the hotel

I don’t remember what floor we were on. 29? 34? The background has the Bay Bridge visible as a triangle, the SFMOMA is lit in the middle, and the Yerba Buena Gardens is on the bottom right.

After settling in, we explored the hotel for a bit and set out to Union Square to check out the Christmas tree.

It was gorgeous.

There were more people than I had anticipated to be there. I’ve never walked around SF at night so I wasn’t sure how it was going to be. Like NYC? Or Las Vegas? I felt safe though. Like I wasn’t going to get mugged or assaulted.

But it was a lot of fun…seeing people enjoy themselves in front of this beauty. I’ve visited this tree before when I came to SF with my sisters (like I mentioned earlier) but during the day time.

We call it a night since it was midnight and headed back to the hotel.

We ate breakfast at the hotel. The eggs and potatoes were forgettable but the bacon and sweets were to die for! The bacon was super crispy but not to the point where it broke apart when you start chewing it. The chocolate chip twist was flaky and wasn’t overly sweet.

After breakfast, we went back to the room to begin the day. My plan was to visit the SFMOMA and do whatever else after I was done. Sophia and Vickie were just going to shop.

I actually spent my entire free time there. It was so big and a bit overwhelming. The Walker Evans exhibition was up so I spent a lot of time there.

It was huge. Really, really huge.

And I didn’t take any pictures of his work. I felt like I shouldn’t…but I did take pictures of the photograph descriptions for future references. Here are a few that I got a kick out of.

I visited all floors of the museum (there are 7) but I completely forgot to visit the old side of the museum. That really bummed me out but there will always be next time. I spent nearly two hours there until I had to meet up with my sisters at the hotel.

We had some time left before grabbing out luggage from the hotel so we attempted to try Boba Guys. It was a 15 minute walk but the line was out the door. Sophia wanted to wait 15 minutes to see where we’d end up. I wasn’t going to wait and forced us to leave haha. We ended up going back towards the hotel to order ShareTea at the Metreon instead.

We left San Francisco shortly after and headed to my other older sister’s house in Pinole to visit my nephews. I was most looking forward to that to be honest. I love them so much! Hehe.

It was an eventful weekend that I enjoyed very much. It put me in a better mood for work for the rest of the year.