San Francisco - Ferry Plaza, China Town, Japan Town

First stop, we went to this place called Ferry Plaza. It is a place where during Saturday, you would be able to see a farmer market, selling fresh vegetables and fruits. The strawberry is very big. Today, we stop by this place while we're on our way to Pier 33 to go to Alcatraz (prison island), but ended up we're not able to do so because the trip to Alcatraz has been fully booked until tonight. The next available time slot will be tomorrow, Monday morning 9:30am. But, in Ferry Plaza, there's nice place to eat fresh oyster (like the one in the picture below) and some nice custard bun as well. Here's some pictures of the place.




Next, since we're not able to go to Alcatraz, we decided to go to China Town instead. Along the way, we came to this Levi's Plaza, like in the following picture. It is like a exhibition center for Levi's current trend and history, with testimony of people who wore it. They even have the first Levi's 501 being hang for exhibition! Here's how the place looks like.



And, here's a picture inside the building.




Then, here we are in China Town. To be honest, if you're going to walk to China Town, please don't be shocked by the things that you might see along the road, for when we walk there, we actually bypassed some red light district area (you know what I mean). Then, there's China Town. It's really is very different from other part of the city - it looks really Chinese (I don't have other word for it). In this part of San Francisco, you will notice that the sign board will have Chinese Wording. Along the way, we spotted a Malaysia-Singapore cuisine restaurant called Penang Garden! Where we could see people making Roti Canai!!! Here's some pictures of China Town.




Then, we decided to walk over the hill (San Francisco is basically on hill) to go to Union Square, which is a famous spot like Bintang Walk (probably bigger, but not good for shopping 'coz it's costly). But then, we spotted the direction to Japan Town, so the whole team decided to visit that place instead. It took us about 30 minutes just to walk there 'coz it's really up hill and down hill. Unlike China Town, it's not really busy, and it's more organized. Probably it's a new place, of which I don't really know. We have our lunch there in a restaurant that serves Teppanyaki. The chef is really good in terms of performing some tricks with the cooking, like flipping only the egg yoke in the air, spinning the egg and flip it for a few times in the air, and tossing the prawns' tail into his hat. One thing I like is how he made a small volcano with the Onions ring. Of course, the food is nice as well. Too bad, I couldn't take any video of it because I don't have my DVD camcorder with me. Anyway, here's some view of Japan Town.