Dear Joe,
I think visitors or even locals like to compare the two biggest cities in CA.
I remember reading an article that compares both cities in details
Living expenses, food, theme parks, weather, pollution, beaches, public transportation, speciality restaurants, cafes, nightlife, downtown, sports, Music scene, celebrity spotting, neighbourhood, countryside, universities etc.
The results show the two great cities are just neck to neck.
In a lot of cases, movies and films are part of our imagination now. Especially those from Hollywood. You would have totally different perceptions of the two cities if you haven’t been to either of them and purely from the impression of the films.
Films based in LA: LaLa Land, A Star is Born, Fast and Furious
Films based in SF: MILK, The Rock, Vertigo
Normally the LA scene in my imagination is some mean street suburbs, no trees, chasing at Channel drains, skyscrapers with corporate settings.
SF scene: downtown with 30s/40s buildings, leafy suburbs, and Californian bungalows.
Indeed, the landscapes are different.
In short, IMHO, SF downtown is more like a metropolitan for tourists with cable cars running which is really unique. And it’s more romantic with songs like San Francisco from Scott McKenzie.
We stayed at a downtown hotel. The parking was quite expensive and very hard to find. Guess it’s the high season. We ended up parking our rental car for the whole 5 days while we stayed in SF. We only travelled on foot or by public transportation (cable cars mainly and bus). You can buy San Francisco CityPass to save some fares if you plan to travel a lot in the downtown area.
The Golden Gate Bridge is a landmark and you must not miss it. This engineering marvel has been featured in so many movies that it can be seen as the most famous bridge in the world - and been destroyed so many times in the movies as well. We went to the visitor centre and had a coffee and a sandwich at the cafe. We walked the bridge as everyone else did. The fog was heavy till midday - we just couldn’t see the whole bridge. The only comparable things I can think of the smog from LA - lingering forever and ever.
Fishman’s Wharf is a tourism hotspot with souvenir shops and restaurants everywhere. You can visit the Aquarium or enjoy a bay cruise. We did both - you can view the Golden Gate Bridge from water. And you can also pay a visit to the notorious Alcatraz.
We went to all the attractions such as Lambard Street, The Painted Ladies, Chinatown, etc. My favourite place is actually the San Francisco Exploratorium. I remember I saw some of the items in Shanghai in 1995. It was an exchange exhibition with only a small number of items displayed. We had almost a whole day here - try all those experiments and scientific/informative displays. Science and technology is never so much fun to play with. My other favourite is the famous SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) When I was a design student, my dream was to visit SFMOMA one day. See my post here for more. We also visited the legendary Yerba Buena Centre where Apple hosted their conference and announcement before they build their own theatre in Cupertino.
Like LA, SF also has the problem of homeless people. Sadly a lot of them have mental health issues that make things much worse.
So long for now for my “A Tale of Two Cities” LOL!
Take care and stay tuned for my Postcard from Pacific 101 coming next!
Oliver
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